Jeoffrey

Onyx Equinox would get full marks from me if the jaguar-like character was voiced by Christopher Judge and so I could fully enjoy another BOY simulator! As it is, if you watch it in English, it seems like he keeps calling Izel BOY mainly so that the audience understands (mainly due to the poorly chosen English voice actor for Izel) that he is really a boy and not a girl! Also, it would not have been so jarring if it were all a bit more relaxed and the basic story were not just a typical heroic journey going from one place to another completing various tasks (with the transitions and jumps being really really fast)... It all follows the usual formula where the hero has to take some friends along for the ride, because they can rarely do anything on their own, and if they fall on their face, which will happen a lot with the lowest of the low, well someone has to be there to pick them up off the ground. However, I do think the setting is really great, I do not know any shows set in the Aztec Empire and the fact that most of the songs are sung in the original Aztec language is another great bonus, and I found the whole thing undeniably charming. Another thing I am incredibly impressed by is how gory it is. Violence in TV shows, movies or even games has its limits. For example, if I take an ordinary video game like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and decide to wipe out an entire village, I am never going to quite succeed because there are certain things that are sort of forbidden in that particular video game. Onyx Equinox does not have any restrictions of this kind. It is raw, gritty and uncompromising. There are a lot of grievous injuries, severed limbs, and various severed body parts (including entrails) everywhere. On the other hand, I only grew to like the main protagonist after quite a while, and he only made a good impression on me around the ninth episode (well, near the end). I also found that the story started to get really interesting around the same time, however, until then it was more of a regular, yet very visually attractive bore-fest. What the hell was that at the end of the first season? Well, it was not quite what I was expecting, the bad-death-romance and problem solving were very Eric Cartman-style, and the fight scene was very chaotic and messy. However, despite all that I still found the second season quite intriguing. 6.5/10.

Somehow, I am not convinced that season two of The Irregular at Magic High School is anything groundbreaking or particularly interesting. In fact, I found the whole of The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc to be just another small (albeit incredibly long-winded) diversion for the main male protagonist and his crew. I think it is a shame that I did not find it very interesting. I found it lacked suspense and also had no real twists. Sure, maybe some of the events shown in this season will be seen to have an impact in future episodes, and this season will eventually get its due, however, it is just that I cannot see that at the moment... I have to say that I also did not find this season very entertaining. I still like the main male protagonist who is going around solving one problem after another with coolness and calm, and in extreme situations he manages to always dig deep and pull off another incredible spell. He is also still undeniably charismatic and I can kind of see what all those girls see in him. However, what does this show have besides a good protagonist? There are a couple of new characters, not much of a storyline, some decent action scenes... However, that is just not enough to make this show more than just average! I think the second season is quite mediocre. 5.5/10.

The new Pixar movie is certainly a very imaginative movie, with very good thought-provoking subject matter, which even provides acceptable answers to questions like "What is the meaning of life?". I really like the soundtrack, especially the jazz music and Trent Reznor's contributions (and you can tell it is him!), so I am definitely satisfied with that aspect. The animation is also excellent (albeit so very Pixar...). This is definitely quite a substantial movie in terms of subject matter, which is food for thought, however, for some reason, I did not enjoy this movie as much this time around as I just did not leave with that unforgettable feeling the Pixar studio's best animated movies left me with. Despite that, however, I am still awarding Soul a strong four stars, 8.4/10.

Jun Maeda has delivered what I expected from him and did not disappoint me. Do you think the beginning was pointless? If you are familiar with the emphasis in Maeda's work, then you are not going to think it was pointless (if you are not familiar, then you need to go to Wikipedia and read up on it in plain English...), and in the end, everything came together and made sense in my opinion. Yes, it probably has a very unremarkable beginning and is one of the author's more ordinary stories. Do you think that the main female protagonist was irritating and hyperactive? Well, her being extremely irritating and hyperactive throughout the season was essential to the story and contrasted beautifully with the final storyline. Of course, in my defense, I have had a thing for spirited girls in robes since A Certain Magical Index, however, that is beside the point... From a rather understated beginning, full of everyday and extraordinary things, we slowly get to the big reveal, and there is a perhaps very hurried escalation, predictable heartache, and then the bittersweet ending, where the author tries to show what really matters to him, and what he was going for. I thought it all worked out pretty well, although I was not as moved by the heart-wrenching ending as in other Maeda's work (because it was quite predictable this time), however, I think the poignancy and final catharsis came through. So even though it was probably the most unexceptional, and maybe the weakest of Maeda’s works, as I wrote at the beginning, it did not disappoint me and I think it did what it set out to do. Also, the animation and soundtrack were very nice. 8/10.

I was left completely satisfied with the third season of Is the Order a Rabbit? I had spent a lot of very lovely Saturday afternoons with a cup of hot cocoa and this incredibly enjoyable and heart-warming show. Bloom means to blossom, and so this season is all about the big and small changes that the characters experience, and keeping them moving forward and evolving. I mean, you could say that this season is a little bit more complex than season one and two, because it is a lot about a person blossoming, and about how they change in small ways. Fortunately, the best thing about the show has not changed, so everything is colorful, adorable, and sometimes even quite amusing. I have nothing to complain about, as I am still really into this anime series. 9.2/10.

If there were a TV series made out of the content of this movie, then, according to established Japanese stereotypes, what happens in this movie would be, in my humble opinion, a plot of the second season. The movie skips the initial bonding between the two main characters and dives straight into their relationship with all its joys and sorrows. There are some classic scenes, and anyone who has seen a romantic GL anime before can easily picture the individual episodes of an imaginary anime series. Even so, the writers have managed to beautifully weave the themes together in this limited format, bringing to the fore the main issue and then resolving it quickly and pleasantly, i.e. the pacing is absolutely impeccable. Thanks to the two main female protagonists and their relationship with each other being the main focus, everything is so endearing. It is full of blushing and rainbow colors, little misunderstandings - once again, this is a classic and well-executed high school romance anime. On the other hand, I would have liked more, I would have liked the whole story and a much deeper analysis of the situations they find themselves in and their emotions so that I could follow them and digest it more because that is what a strange combination of a romantic and a pragmatist like me seems to really get into. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable movie with simple pastel-colored animation and an absolutely gorgeous soundtrack, plus, lovely characters... It just flew by... 8.4/10.

Oh yeah, thanks to you, gentlemen, I now really do not know what else I could possibly write about this anime series. I read one, a second, and even a third review and I just had to nod my head and think - Yeah, that's true!. The world it is set in is excellent, engaging, and has a lot of potential. The beginning is great, it definitely has some style and the drive the title promises. However, from the moment the characters get on the train, there are moments where I have to raise my eyebrows and think to myself that half the stuff that happens from here on out is absolute bullshit that could probably make me really depressed. The pacing is unnecessarily fast, the character development is really sloppy, the development of the interesting aspects of the stories is severely truncated. True, that's pretty true... Sometimes it is visually pleasing though, the last two episodes literally explode with color and movement. The whole thing has some drive, so it still somehow managed to engage me and I sometimes looked forward to what was going to happen next. However, I was also worried about what they were going to absurdly overdo or stupidly mess up again. That is also true! So, what am I supposed to contribute? I have read all the reviews and agree with everything that has been said already by others, and in the end, it is mostly an exceptional load of wasted potential and I think that it is a mediocre anime series that has some pretty good stuff, some pretty bad stuff and a lot of other stuff in between... I am off to play elsewhere, my review is pointless. 5/10.

If someone had told me back in September that the biggest surprise and one of the best anime series of the anime season Fall 2020 would be a yuri anime, I would not have believed it! I have nothing against Girl Love anime, it is just that I have a fundamental problem with the way GL is presented. Either it is shown as just a simple fap-service (and I mean a typically accessible series, not yuri hentai which is kind of what it is trying to be) without an interesting story. Then there is the show where the female protagonists kiss in the very first episode and then struggle with the consequences, and rather than focusing on the protagonists developing a deeper relationship, they throw in some clichéd romantic drama involving rivals and the whole anime series becomes about that instead. Then we have anime where the girls' romance is a meaningless peripheral issue, and finally, some are just soap operas where the girls are just fooling around with each other and I wonder if it is really about love, or if it is just a simple friendship. In other words, I thought that yuri anime starring normal characters in a run-of-the-mill, believable, well-written GL romance did not exist until recently, or rather I guess I had never come across it, and I was convinced that my ideal romantic GL anime was probably closest to the relationship of the main female protagonists in Sound! Euphonium, and to my disappointment that show is not based on such subject matter after all (that is how good the chemistry between the girls was). Then Adachi and Shimamura came along! In the beginning, it did not seem like it was anything new or surprising, and during the first few episodes, I was thinking about which of the above formulas this anime series would follow. However, as time went on it became much more interesting, more heartfelt, and deeper. In other words, it became a very good romantic GL anime series starring two very different young girls who each have their own problems that brought them together, and I could easily imagine they were probably eventually going to end up together (apart from the fact that the author wanted it that way) because it really made sense. Plus, the development of this relationship is gradual, enjoyable, and endearing. Each of the girls views their relationship differently, yet it is completely believable (and appropriate concerning the age of the characters). We are even convinced of the most basic truths here, such as the fact that when a person is in love they can become obsessed with the object of their desire and remember them even in the strangest situations. We are reminded that love is selfish, we crave the closeness of the person we love, and ideally want them all to ourselves. Love can come suddenly with the realization that we have developed an unhealthy fixation on someone, or slowly when we realize that we actually care about the other person much more than we thought. Love changes us, gives us courage... All of this and much more is brilliantly crafted in this show, and thanks to the inner monologues of the two female protagonists, it feels really deep and heartfelt! This is what a romantic anime series should be about, and everything else is secondary... Therefore, I do not even mind the appearance of the strange alien woman, whose significance I am still thinking about, wondering if she is going to have a major role in future developments, or if she is just there as a reference to the author's previous anime series Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl (I thought the spacesuit was familiar...). Nothing else matters - because I found an excellent and quality romantic GL anime series that is really well produced. Sure, there are some titillating scenes, however, in context, they make sense because when we love someone we dream about them and want to touch them - this is normal! In other words, this is a well-written, deep, slow-burning romance between two young girls (which is not a bad thing, after all) that would stand on its own merits, even if there were a girl and a boy or two boys instead of two girls... That is what a good romantic anime series should look like to me, and this one just happens to be about girls! 9/10.

This anime series did not have an easy time with audiences from the very beginning. In fact, even before the first episode aired, content appeared on many anime sites promising something completely different from what this show was actually about. What happened there? Well, someone used the content of the official novels, which the live-action TV series of the same name draws from entirely. However, this anime series is not another adaptation, it is rather a sort of sequel loosely speaking. So the audience got something different from what they were expecting. For example, the romance that was promised does not happen in this anime series at all (there is a bromance at most), the style of the show is more like stand-alone stories from a Japanese neighborhood full of gangs and unpacking various interesting social issues (which is probably the best thing about this anime series). The other problem is that you do not slowly get to know the main male protagonist from the beginning and follow his journey into the position of local chief negotiator and fixer (a great term, which I am borrowing from Cyberpunk 2077 which I am still playing), so we do not see where and how he built some of the important relationships that shaped him. We join him when he is acting from a position he is pretty much assured of. Again, this does not sit well with everyone, because logically it is better if we see the main male protagonist’s journey from its beginnings, to build our relationship with him. It can also quickly disappoint those who, after the first few minutes, get the impression that this is for some reason similar to the likes of K, or perhaps Durarara!! - because of the colorful gangs and King(s)! It is not primarily about being full of action scenes either, because the protagonist does everything in his power to quell any violence! On the other hand, when there are fight scenes, they look pretty good. Thus, the main driving force of this anime series is merely its attempt to show various problems in society and how they can be dealt with. This is often very interesting, sometimes boring, and at least with one episode (with the YouTuber) I feel like I wasted twenty minutes of my life. Fortunately, more interesting subject matter prevails, the screenwriters were also lucky that Jeoffrey had done some research into this anime series beforehand, and so knew what he was getting into, thus nothing of the above put him off or dashed his false expectations, and so now at the end I can safely say that it was actually quite good... 6/10.

It is great to see how far we have come since the first season of this show. The hideous CGI bear has been replaced by a gorgeous and deadly wolverine, which has taken on all the cat-like beasts that have come along... The scenery is once again both beautiful and rugged, and the trip to Russia is incredibly entertaining and informative, full of all sorts of surprises, and very emotional. I am very satisfied with this show! I was already really into it from the second episode, which was one of the most masculine episodes in this anime series so far, and which I enjoyed immensely. Some of the twists were great, and I did not expect the biggest twist to involve someone who is not actually a part of the whole expedition (those who have seen are going to know what I am talking about, however, I am not going to spoil it for the rest). Again, I learned a lot, not only about Japanese and Russian people, fauna, and flora but especially about the characters themselves. I did however miss the relationship between Sugimoto and Ashiripa, which was perhaps the most entertaining aspect of this show, and I also felt it was lacking some interesting facts regarding the customs and traditions of Ainu, and I also really missed some of the characters who we left in Japan. However, it was still an excellent show - just like the previous season, and I am looking forward to the next one. 8.4/10.