I enjoyed the show but there are many flaws, the biggest of which are the spontaneousness to how characters change on a whim depending on the episode. I will explain this at the end of my review.
Story (9, great): I liked the story. The plot is nicely paced, with cool little supernatural mechanics that mess with the characters to facilitate their growth/youth and the mechanics tie well to how they are used to help these characters grow and come of age (I'd use an example of said mechanics, but MAL wants no spoilers in reviews!) These mechanics also create mini archs in the story which
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gives it a bit of structure.
Art (6, fair): Nothing bad to say, nothing good to say. It gets the job done. I did not notice any particularly stellar directing in terms of camera angle nor other techniques that titles such as, oh i don't know just going to randomly list off my head, Madoka, Psycho-path, Evangelion, Kill La Kill or even Your Lie in April had.
Camera angles are very bland, sort of just a "here, look at our characters while they do stuff" approach. Art style is crisp and clean, but not unique.
Sound (6, fair): nothing good to say, nothing bad to say. Gets the job done at a basic level. Nothing stellar (unfortunately i have based this without hearing the OP simply because i just auto skip openings, but a 6 = fair, and i think it was fairly good).
Character (3, poor):
I REALLY see potential in these characters, but i truthfully believe characters could have been handled much better in this case.
1. At first, it seemed like the show might enter a section by section basis of tacking character's trauma or problems to help them move on or grow up, come of age, etc.
However, it ends up devolving into a mess. The show would jump from engaging in one character's issue to another character's issue on a whim just when the first painted issue/story has grabbed your attention (for ex. the episode that tackled both Iori's personal issue + Inaba's trust issues).
2. Characters contradict themselves too much. Or rather, it almost seems like they forget the growing / learning / character development that had occurred in certain previous episodes. I'm not sure how i can give an example without spoiling so i'll just describe the situations with no story context. For example, Character A had an arch that is dedicated to making them develop and grow in a way that teaches them to rely on others, such as friends, yet later on in the show, they completely forget about this and go back to burdening everything on themselves (which seems to be a huge reoccuring theme. Essentially im guessing the show is trying to teach teenagers to value communication, etc, all that jazz, you know the drill).
3. Characters are incredibly 1 dimensional, but i don't think this is neccessarily a flaw for the objective in this show. The show clearly targets teenage viewers with themes focused on coming of age. I think using stereotypes can be an effective way to deliver some of the lessons the show tries to teach. Nonthelesss, i do have to point out that the characters are very 1 dimensional.
There is a pro to this lack of structure and messy approach. That it is realistic. BUT, this is a TV medium/show...sacrificing realism for delivery matters much more. Especially since this show is filled with coming of age life lessons that they want to teach to the likely teenager viewers watching it.
Overall (6.5, fair - good): Overall i still enjoyed the show. It reminds me of the innocence before adulthood and the plot progression was paced decently with intriquing story mechanics. Art and sound are passable and gets the job done. Character again is my biggest complaint. It is inconsistent. Some episodes have very nice character developments, other episodes slaps a "character development complete" within matter of minutes. And again, it seems like the characterse all have short memeories... But in another way, while i think this is a flaw on a literary level as a media medium, it does remind me of my teenager years. Realistically, character development does not happen in a structured arch like i propsed (although i still stand that its better do structure it in a TV show), and realistically, teenagers are pretty incoherent half the time and often rebounds. So i can see these characters being more real, but again, for a TV show, doing so distracts the life lessons the narrative is trying to teach in some moments. Real life is real life, a show is a show at the end of the day.
To conclude: good story and plot at a high level, bland characters, fair art and sound, bad / almost random feeling execution. To me the supernatural and story elements really carried my enjoyment. Otherwise this would be lower than a 5 rating.
Nov 5, 2018
Kokoro Connect
(Anime)
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I enjoyed the show but there are many flaws, the biggest of which are the spontaneousness to how characters change on a whim depending on the episode. I will explain this at the end of my review.
Story (9, great): I liked the story. The plot is nicely paced, with cool little supernatural mechanics that mess with the characters to facilitate their growth/youth and the mechanics tie well to how they are used to help these characters grow and come of age (I'd use an example of said mechanics, but MAL wants no spoilers in reviews!) These mechanics also create mini archs in the story which ... |
