Animation Revelation's Animation Blog

As Trigger budded off from Gainax, the comparisons were inevitable from the very beginning. A two-cour mecha anime featuring heavy sexual imagery. A timid, teenage boy thrown into a cockpit and forced to fight giant monsters, while finding himself in a love triangle between a hot-blooded foreign girl in a red suit and a blue-haired girl whose feelings for said boy feel more familial than romantic. Even from the first episode, astute audiences took pictures, matched them up with screencaps from Evangelion, and went “See! See! Trigger are full of hacks!” While complaining about shows ripping off Eva has been an old game since the early 00s, all the parallels have left fans and critics curious. Is it because Darling in the Franxx might be a badly-written show, or because Evangelion is still that influential decades after its original airing? Or a combination of both?

As I specified earlier, accusing other anime of plagiarizing from Evangelion has been common since the original show’s ending. You could use the timid teenager in a love triangle example and apply it to many other shows like Gurren Lagann, or look at any show with a giant robot that makes even a scant mention of puberty and say that series is made by thieves. It’s depressingly easy to look at dozens of shows or movies from far away, and say they’re all the same based off of basic attributes. Some critics don’t like to dissect what makes works of media different, and only group everything together because that’s simply less effort than analyzing what makes X different from Y. Sure, there’s always the genuine knockoff like Space Thunder Kids, it’s funny to poke fun at shows for their similar plots and imagery, and many anime are indeed derivative from each other, but it undermines what the writers and directors want to do in Darling in the Franxx to say they’re just tracing Anno’s footprints. After all, Studio Khara has done animation work on several episodes, so it’s not as if Anno isn’t aware of this show’s existence.

But that’s not to say this series is safe from such criticism. For all its interesting ideas regarding youth culture and society’s view on sexuality, the show misses so goddamn much. So much of the imagery is too silly to take seriously. All of the forced innuendo turns what are meant to be dramatic scenes into laugh riots. Characters who have been in the show for over a dozen episodes have so little personality that I can only describe one as “the fat kid who eats bread a lot”. All this in mind, I’m wary as to whether Trigger knows what they’re doing with this series. And with an uneven path like this, maybe one could say it doesn’t know its own road but rather following someone else’s.

While Franxx has been going through a steady pace and started going through a series of eye-opening plot reveals during episode 13, was Evangelion not going through a similar phase at that part of its run? From Asuka’s introduction but right before the episode where Shinji is absorbed by Leliel and taken on an introspective journey, eight to fifteen, Eva had a more lighthearted tone than its latter batch of episodes would eventually deliver. There were still important episodes in this period that would serve as puzzle pieces for the end, but they were still more straightforward than what would come after. And perhaps that’s the similar case with Franxx. Franxx’s episodes from seven to eleven have been derided by viewers as episodes where nothing happened, where any intrigue was replaced by beach episodes and the boys peeking at the girls when they’re bathing. Not quite ‘thermal expansion’, but close. The plot structures as of this writing go like this: Hiro/Shinji become robot pilots who despite a success or two, feel inadequate at the job. Then they win a monster fight with the power of teamwork, leading to a run of episodes more lackadaisical than what came before. But after that period is over, plot twists start being chucked while Hiro/Shinji has a mental breakdown in the middle of a fight, and discovers that one of their co-pilots was actually an important figure in their childhood. And then the dysfunction spreads among the rest of the cast, while a giant monster pops up from nowhere and consumes several people. Though individual episodes are far from a complete match up, and several characters like Zero Two and Asuka don’t sync up beyond their superficial appearances, it does lead to curiosity as to how far these similarities will go. Maybe the last two episodes of Franxx will also be a clip show/introspective dialogue followed by a movie? Maybe Nine Alpha will offer to play piano with Hiro? Maybe Hiro will masturbate to a comatose Ichigo, and find out that Zero Two is actually a clone of his mother? Or they could feel lucky and rip off the ending of Gurren Lagann instead?

Or you could say this entire article is nonsense, since this show is ripping off Eureka Seven instead.

23 Slaves and Me

A man walks into a studio. He asks to see the manager because he has a series to pitch. The manager comes out of his domain and asks, “What are you offerin’?”
“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” the man says. “You can’t believe the kind of anime I have for you!”
“Another one of them isekai whatchamacallits?” the manager inquires.
“Don’t you shut the door in front of me, because my anime will shatter your mind! You know those revenge shows where a girl gets personally wronged mentally and physically, and she has to put the law in her own hands to seek some good old Japanese vengeance?”
“Like a hentai?”
“No, not a hentai! Because, you see, there’s a never before seen technology in this show, a set of retainers you put in your mouth,
“Retainers?”
“Yes! And if you put another retainer in somebody else’s mouth, they can become your slave, you see, if you beat them in a game!”
“This sounds suspiciously like a hentai.”
“No, no, no! You think I’m sort of smut peddler? I am a purveyor of art, and my work will be beloved by critics and casuals alike!”
“What’s the name of your proposed anime?”
“23 Slaves and Me.”
“That sounds like a hentai title.”
“It’s not hentai, good sir!”
“Then how is it not hentai?”
“Because it has retainers! What hentai would use retainers as their slave tech? That would be pretty disgusting, am I right?”
The manager grabs his chin and rubs his beard. “There are a lot of disgusting hentai though. Like that one with the ‘Kaihou!’ guy.”
“But do they have retainers?!”
“And then there was that one where a girl as young as my daughter put a tube up her butt and shit in it.”
“Do they have retainers, good sir?!”
“Then there are all those where the girl screams ‘Onii-chan! Onii-chan!’ even though the guy isn’t really her brother. And the guy looks like a fat frog, so your chub gets soft the moment your eyes wander onto him. Like I’m not gay or anything, but more hentais need pretty boys instead of ugly frog people. And all these modern hentais have shitty flash animation, so even the ladies look ugly, making it so you’re basically watching an ogre fuck a dead animal. And fuck that, if I want that, I’d watch real people fuck. That shit makes NTR look nice, because I swear–”
“Please, sir! Do any of these pornographical films have any retainers?!”
“…no, can’t recall any. Guess you have me stumped.”
“So do we have a deal? Can my show manifest into reality?”
“Fine, fuck, whatever. But now I have hentai on the brain, so I gotta go back to my office and… uh, unbuckle these urges. Don’t disturb me.”
– A lapsed follower of Kaihou

FLCL Alternative

Not sure how we missed this one. Part of me feels like we should save it for the Fall write-ups, since that’s when the rest of the season airs, but hey; if the folks at [adult swim] felt like this year’s April Fools’ Day prank should be handing over a subbed version of FLCL 3’s first episode to American audiences, then why not get my thoughts about it out of the way now? Besides, Marquis or Dalek can write about it again in September/October.

My first experience with FLCL came in high school, when I started getting into anime more earnestly. It was on the list of anime to watch for a podcast project, where a bunch of my Twitter friends submitted some of their favourite anime for me and a few others to watch over the course of a year. Some of these shows managed to become some of my favourites as well, such as Kino’s Journey and Paranoia Agent. Others I came to roll my eyes at, like AiR. (If only my younger self knew anime could get much, much worse than that.) FLCL immediately joined that first list, and still ranks as one of my favourite anime of all-time: a coming-of-age story about learning to be comfortable in your own skin and to not grow up too quickly mixed with off-the-wall allegory and symbolism, hilariously kinetic animation and jokes, and small whispers of space opera in the background. It’s a fun six-episode romp that I loved back in high school and still love today as an unemployed twenty-something trying to figure out what to do with his liberal arts degrees. So when [adult swim] announced that they’ve ordered two more seasons of the show, I was hesitantly optimistic. Things can go dreadfully wrong when bringing something back, especially if it’s a postscript season made years after the original production wrapped up. The creatives behind it, even if it’s the same team that gave us that first work, can forget or misunderstand what fans enjoyed about what they made. They can double-down too much on elements that fans liked sparingly or in moderation, or forget some beloved aspect all together. The new ideas or stories brought to the table could run opposed to the ones that fans have imagined and built-up in their heads in the years since the last new episode. It could be a fantastic return to form, a disappointing trainwreck, or an unsatisfying whimper. From this first episode, I can safely say that FLCL Alternative isn’t a trainwreck or a whimper. It remains to be seen if it is truly great, but I’m certainly staying on the ride.

In a word, our little glimpse of FLCL Alternative was satisfying. It doesn’t feel out of place when watched immediately after FLCL, which is the first thing you’d want from it. After all, what’s the point of bringing something back as a continuation if you don’t retain the same feel? That said, while this still feels like the world of FLCL, there something about it that feels more subdued, from character actions down to the music that’s once again courtesy of The Pillows. There’s a clear method to the madness that’s immediately evident here, with said madness feeling awfully brief, whereas the first episode of the original OVA threw so much at the viewer that you were in a daze afterwards, trying to process it all. What we have here is something more slow and relaxed, having more in common with KyoAni slice-of-life than Gainax/Trigger insanity. New protagonist Kana’s days are spent hanging out with her friends in a club room and working a part-time job, not dealing with an older sibling’s ex-girlfriend/admirer and an immature father. Haruko’s first interaction with her is ordering lukewarm ramen, not running her over with a Vespa SS 180. Until the monster attack, Haruko is quietly hanging back and scoping Kana from the sidelines, while the Department of Interstellar Immigration wonders what she’s doing with equal reservation. Contrast with her inserting herself into Naota’s life with gusto, badgering him at every turn to see if banging him in the head with a Rickenbacker did what she wanted. Of course, I would be foolish not to acknowledge that all this is the point and that this season isn’t named “alternative” just for flavor. FLCL was a story about a preteen boy trying to grow up too quickly and learning to slow down and be a kid. Alternative flips that script with a teenage girl learning to accept that her childhood is coming to an end and that the responsibilities of adulthood aren’t just going to wait until she’s ready. And for that, the calmer vibe does its job; setting up a cute slice-of-life feel for an opening chapter that will give way to more serious events on a journey that will be more restrained this time around, though we’ll undoubtedly still see some ridiculous stuff happen along the way. This is still FLCL, after all. It may be a good four-and-a-half months before we see Kana and her friends again, but this first taste has me believing that bringing FLCL back wasn’t a mistake. For now, anyway. (Still bitter about Ashi in Samurai Jack Season 5. Don’t pull an Ashi, FLCL.) – RacattackForce

Magical Girl Site

Magical Girl Site is the latest anime to hop onboard the “Dark Magical Girl” bandwagon in an attempt to ride off the coat tails of shows such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna. Adapted from a manga published in Akita Shoten’s “Weekly Shounen Champion” (that’s right, shounen!) This magical girl/horror anime wastes no time in diving headfirst into edgefest. Now, as someone who loves the concepts of magical girls but hates the aesthetics and overall moralistic nature of most, the idea of a horror-focused magical girl series should be right up my alley, so what could go wrong? Unfortunately, much like 2016’s Magical Girl Raising Project, Site decides to wallow in gratuitous torture porn and suffering of its main characters and pointless cruelty for its antagonists, all while keeping an artstyle typical of common magical girls with little in the way of levity. This results in the worst kind of edge in a show and genre mashup that should be so much more.

As already mentioned in last week’s write-up, Site’s premier had the most disgusting tropes and bullying cliché’s ever written, all with little to no payoff for it. While I am, unfortunately, aware that the bullying seen there aren’t so disconnected from reality as we might wish it was, but I can only imagine what an actual middle school bullying victim must feel like coming from a crappy day and reading a manga where that exact same shit happens with almost no real catharsis. Indeed when main character Asagiri’s school bullies are finally dealt with neither she nor the audience is granted even a temporarily relieve as the circumstances just result in more angst and trauma for our protagonist, in spite of said tormentors being so one-dimensional and antagonistic they barely even qualify as human. This, more than anything, is Site’s greatest flaw; while a good dark story would allow moments of temporarily relieve in between the darkness, Site just pours misery on top of misery as if that alone builds good character. It’s a problem that’s plagued quite a bit of “grimdark” media, and very few have what it takes to pull it off in any satisfactory way.

Episode 2 is a vast improvement, though to be honest, that honestly just makes Site’s flaws more apparent (in addition to being the faintest praise you can get). We’re properly introduced to second protagonist and Asagiri’s potential love interest Yatsuhara, a veteran magical girl that can stop time (sound familiar?) and get more world building as well as hints of an overarching plot, and our first real antagonist, there was even some moments of levity that could plausibly be read as intentional black comedy! If you had condensed the first episode into ten minutes and add the first half of this episode to that, you would have had a much stronger, if flawed, narrative. Helping the case here was the episode’s antagonist actually being fun and enjoyable to watch, having the energy and mental instability of a typical enemy Stand user from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and though you could guess the plot twist about her coming from a mile away, the attempted intrigue with her identity was a nice effort, if future antagonists are more like her, then there may be hope for this show yet.

The idea of a dark and edgy magical girl series truly intrigues me, but I have yet to see it truly done well barring Madoka, so many have been plagued with the same problems that Magical Girl Site has, from needless angst and suffering to incredibly lame magic systems and clashing art designs. To give credit where credit is due, Site doesn’t give any pretenses it’ll be anything other than an magical girl edgefest and forgoes any form of bait and switch unlike the aforementioned Yuki Yuna or Raising Project, but when that’s the highest praise that can be given to it, then something’s certainly wrong with the execution of this sub-genre. Who knows? Maybe we will get a dark magical girl series that successfully blends action horror elements like how Lyrical Nanoha did for mecha and magical girls, or how Garo did for Tokusatsu and horror. Maybe we will get a magical girl show with stylish, gory action and set pieces that doesn’t feel like it’s catering to ryona fetishists. And maybe we will get another dark magical girl franchise that truly does live up to its potential and successfully attracts fans that would normally never touch a magical girl anime but with an art style that actually reflects its tone and subject matter. Whenever that may be, Magical Girl Site is not and will not be that show. – CrimsonRynnec

Megalo Box

My experience watching the debut of Megalo Box with Marquis and Rynnec consisted of me gushing over its fantastic animation for the duration of the episode, to the point of obnoxiousness. Later, I proceed to watch it again and privately faun over how much this anime pulled me into its world with a banging soundtrack and interesting characters. I expected to gain little enjoyment from this show, not because I thought it would be awful, but because I generally have little interest in sports anime. To this day, the only sports anime that I’ve watched more than two episodes of would have to be Aim for the Ace and Ping Pong: The Animation. Which means, yes, the fact that this is a science-fiction reimagining of Ashita no Joe meant absolutely nothing to me. The only thing in my mind was how misplaced this thing felt in the current anime landscape: a show with the gritty visual stylings of a 1980s/90s OVA smack dab in the middle of a modern anime season that’s once again 90% mindless schlock that I’d never revisit unless you paid me. And it was done by a first-time director? Megalo Box is just pure witchcraft. Nothing else this season comes close to touching it.

From the very start, I was invested in Junk Dog’s story. An illegal alien with only a motorcycle and a duffel bag filled with boxing gear to his name, throwing fights in the underground just to appease gamblers when he fully believes that he can sweep the floor with anyone if given the chance. Maybe that’s nothing more but a slight variant on the classic “kid rising from the slums/ghetto and proving themselves” idea that’s the foundation of a great number of sport stories. But does that really matter when, by the end of the first episode, you’re just as excited as Junk Dog is when the opportunity to let loose is finally granted to him? Even if he finds himself the victim of a one-round KO at the hands of a champion boxer in the next one. Junk Dog is cocky as hell, but make no mistake, he’s that confident because he knows exactly what his potential is. And he isn’t going to stop until he finally reaches it and gets what he desires: a challenging fight with a man who may very well be capable to knocking him out for good. I have nothing but excitement to see him work towards becoming the boxer he wants to be in the episodes to come and can only hope the show never falters from the promise made in the first two episodes. Megalo Box was sublime from moment our protagonist’s motorcycle raced past the camera. I can only hope it stays that way until the very end. – RacattackForce

Uma Musume Pretty Derby

(to the tune of CatDog)

One fine day with a whinny and neigh/
A baby was born with an odd taste for hay/
Possessed by equine (I didn’t misspeak)/
Her bewildered moms named her Special Week!

Special Week!
Special Week!
Idol racing horse-girl Special Week!

This moe young gal aims to be the best/
Her pervy new owner will put that to the test/
Runnin’ down the track/
Prancing all day long/
Everypony gather round n’ sing this song

Special Week!
Special Week!
Idol racing horse-girl Special Week!

Special Week!
Special Week!
Idol racing horse-girl Special Week!

…Wait, what? I was supposed to write this entry to the tune of the My Little Pony theme song? And I still have to actually review it? Okay, I’ll review the show, but I’m not rewriting the song.

Pretty Derby is an anime about horse-girls learning how to best horse-girls they can be. They’re cute, I guess. My favourite one is the American exchange student who dresses up like a luchador. But if I have to be serious, then the whole concept strikes me as odd. Humans who are possessed by deceased racehorses? That’s what we’re doing this season? Do horse-girls have equal human rights in this world or are they second-class citizens? Can young When Lightning Strikes or Mango Madness endeavor to be architects or chiropractors, or are they doomed to race for money? Am I going to hell for chuckling every time the main character is called Spe-chan? I don’t know, guys. Once the novelty of “lol, Japan did another silly weird thing” wears off, all you’ve got is your run-of-the-mill CGDCT cartoon. You could certainly do worse than this, but unless you’re really into horse racing, there isn’t much here for you. The show did remind me that I should charge my 3DS and play some more Pocket Card Jockey, though. So that’s cool of it. – RacattackForce

Spring is in the air, and so is anime.

Caligula

I remember as a teenager thinking the Matrix sequels had interesting things to say about philosophy and the human mind. I know, bear with me, but I legitimately thought shit like the Merovingian’s cake orgasm speech and Agent Smith asking Neo why he keeps fighting were cool. But that was over a decade ago, and now I think all those attempts at psychological science were stupid. Nothing except for a couple fight scenes aged particularly well. All the writing was ripped out from a Philosophy 101 textbook and sprinkled with black and green glitter. And I sit here wondering what I saw in those films in the first place. I can’t even watch the first movie anymore without finding the dialogue stiff and lifeless. Now this is exactly what I think a teenage anime fan would feel upon watching Caligula, something they’ll think is deep and insightful only to look back and realize it was tripe years later. It’s catnip for the easily impressed, introspective kid.

And it couldn’t be more blatant. Majority of the episode is nothing but the main character going about his life while monologuing about Jungian psychology that he recently read from a book in his hand. Even when he’s eating ramen with friends, he’s talking about the aspects of the human mind. It’s the level of filibustering that I previously saw in Steve Ditko’s Mr. A. Occasionally, some visual tricks happen to make you think you’re watching a more interesting show, but before you know it, it switches back to more talking. Only to snap at the last minute and shift to Vocaloids coming out into reality and murdering schoolchildren. That was the surprise of the episode. Not a welcome one though. It’s a story that props itself up as insightful, but only tells a confusing tale while hoping you’re too distracted by the violence and pretty colors to complain about it. If I wanted that, I’d break into a high school and listen to the pretentious tenth grader talk for twenty minutes while he plays phone games. But I suppose Caligula is the alternative if I don’t want to be arrested. – BloodyMarquis

Fist of the Blue Sky: Re:Genesis

Recently, I thought that a new adaptation of Fist of the North Star would do wonders in the modern day. Jojo’s proved that anime fans were interested in old-school shonen works, and the political climate right now matches the one when the first anime came out. In practice, it would be like cake. But instead, the evils of cheap CGI make their move, turning what could have been a gateway for a new generation of Hokuto fans into a strange, lumbering beast. One that somehow feels even more dated, more of a period piece than a show with “We Are Living in the Nineties” in the second opening’s lyrics. Perhaps that’s because this is an adaptation of the little-known prequel where Kenshiro’s teacher shows up, meaning the people who will get the most out of this series are already fans of the franchise, though I’m not sure how they’ll appreciate animation comparable to 6-frames-a-second stop motion. It’s not just regularly bad CGI, but quality that makes Transformers Energon look like a Weta production.

For a city as easy to make into scenery porn as Shanghai, the direction makes this setting so lifeless and sullen, to such a degree that the post-apocalyptic landscape of the first series has more atmosphere and soul. And while it maybe unfair to compare this series to one from decades past, this show almost begs for you to do so. Like the character who looks like Rei, acts like Rei, and has his own version of Nanto. Then we’ll have him fight Kenshiro’s namesake to trick people into thinking they’re watching the old show, instead of poor substitutes with less movement than 80s Toei. This is like if instead of making Dragon Ball Super, Toei made a CGI adaptation of Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. Sure, Super was also a cashgrab, but at least it was a successful cashgrab. A cashgrab that got people worldwide to cheer for Goku again. Whereas this barely merits acknowledgement. And that’s the worst thing this show can possibly do: It made me think Toei of all studios can do a better job. – BloodyMarquis

Heldensagen Vom Kosmosinsel: Die Neue Thiese

Ah The Legend of Galactic Heroes…a beloved 100+ episode saga of revenge, lust, chivalry, nobility, and honor. A work of suck monumental length and stature that just merely mentioning its name sends a major shiver in the spines of our dear fanbase. This is the show that separates boys from men. The great walkabout into legitimacy for true born otaku. What? You like DBZ? FUCK THAT CASUAL TRASH! LEGEND. OF. GALACTIC. HEROES!!! That is how you pass judgement against lesser mortals who do not know the awe and wonder that is LOGH.

Personally though…

…I think its the most overrated pile of pretentious codswaddle to ever get unleashed out of Japan. No really. Watching LOGH, for me, is not so much a test of my manliness, but rather one of my intention span, as small as it is (thanks Aspergers!). Most episodes of the OVA just involve a bunch of men whose names you cant remember standing in rooms talking about things you instantly forget about while Wagner and Ravel play in the background. Occasionally spaceships go pew pew for a seconds because the studio lacked a budget to animate them. Its the Cure for Insomnia but designed in a way where you’re supposed to take a quiz at the end because LOGH is as important to humanity as the Fall of the Roman Empire, thus forcing you to hold on for dear life while being buried under a stream of nonsensical subtitles! Oh did I mention its not dubbed and never can or will be? Because of course not!

So why am I talking about this? Oh that’s right, the remake! Yes Production IG has elected to remake LOGH…but with a budget! Now Reinhardt and Kircheis, instead of just standing or sitting in rooms can…*GASP* walk around in them! Now space battles, instead of consisting entirely of jerky white lines rendered at 15fps, have dramatic new CGI because IG has MOOOOONEYZ! Hate public domain classical music? Well good news! Here’s Sawano to recycle the same soundtrack he’s been doing since 2011 for the trillioneth time. Yup change is in the air!…but not for Kircheis’ height because he’s seven centimeters taller than Reinhard and that’s clearly enough. ACTUAL DIALOGUE!

But can these changes bring life to the shambling corpse of monotony that was the original LOGH? Well the answer to that question is…sorta. The problem remains that this is the most emotionally cold space war show ever made. The characters are often aloof and devoid of personality, lording over the battlefield as if they were players in a chess game. Unlike Gundam, LOGH has always lacked that sense of personal horror when it comes to war anime, instead its all about power, majesty, and myth. That might be fine and dandy when it comes to some sort of propaganda piece but I demand some sort of emotional truth behind it. That is why at the end of day LOGH has always rung soulless and hollow to me.

On the other hand, Die Neue Thiese really puts that budget to good use in an area the old OVA was severely lacking in and that’s a sense of scale. These space battles are really well animated and dramatic, appropriately showing the chaos that occurs when incompetent space commanders get run over by Reinhard Von Lohengramm. Its just a shame I don’t give a fuck about anybody because Reinhard and Kircheis are too dominant figures in this plot…until Yang Wen Li shows up in the last two minutes to rain on their parade.

Ultimately though I’m not sure if there was a point to LOGH:ANT. While I appreciate the attempt to freshen up this story to make it more accessible, it still doesn’t make it any less of a ultimately hollow experience. But that’s a problem of the source material and I can not overlook it. A worthy effort but a futile one. – Lord Dalek

Opinion from someone who watched the old show

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of Legend of the Galactic Heroes’ localization,
it was the age of no dubs,
it was the epoch of buying LOGH DVDs,
it was the epoch of $800 boxes,
it was the season of a new anime,
it was the season of a shitty production staff,
it was the spring of a fresh remake,
it was the winter of only 12 episodes,
we had every CGI ship before us,
we had Kuroko no Basket character designs before us,
we were all going direct to Iserlohn,
we were all going direct the other way—
in short, the season of anime was so far like the present season, that some of its noisiest reviewers insisted on its being received, for plebs or for weebs, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The old Legend of the Galactic Heroes show was a treasure in every sense of the word. 110 episodes and dozens more in the sidestories all produced for the OVA market, starring almost every seiyu active at the time, released over the course of almost a decade. It was a labor of love that few other anime have equaled in their ambition, so anybody who wanted to make a new series had Herculean boots to fill. This show is not going to fill those shoes. I know that’s dismissive, but after watching the premiere, and seeing the credits for this re-imagining, I have no reason to believe this version will satisfy. There’s no way this will get to any of the great parts of the series in under 12 episodes unless they speed things up, and if that were the case, this would just be the Greatest Hits edition of LOGH. Shined and given a spit job to give the appearance of a new interpretation.

Instead, just watch the previous show. I know what you’re thinking, it’s 110 episodes. But when most anime fans could watch over 130 episodes of Dragon Ball Super, and tons of people can watch sixty something episodes of Game of Thrones even though it stopped being enjoyable after season four, it’s not that much by comparison. Go ahead and give the show a try. I believe in you. – BloodyMarquis

Magical Girl Site

Whelp…it finally happened! I finally have to write up a show with a fucking waterboarding scene! Oh sure its actually a toilet but close enough. Not only that but this is, as the title states, a magical girl show. A magical girl show with waterboarding! I don’t know if Madoka ripoffs were a thing before outside of Wixoss and Yuki Yuuna, but if they are, then this is the bottom of the barrel: literal torture porn. Lord help me, I’ve still got 17 minutes to go watching this.

Anyway back to poor Asagiri here, who’s being drowned by a bunch of sadistic gyarus. To see the least, this girl is nothing but pure sadness. She desperately wants one thing and one thing only: to off herself. Whether it be in front of a passing train or with a can of straight razors she keeps in her school locker. But naturally this is only a problem at school right? I mean surely home life should provide enough security for her t-OH wait, here comes OLDER BROTHER to horribly beat and molest Asagiri…..

(Excuse me for a moment)

*ahem* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!

(okay)

Oh hey she’s got a cute little cat that she takes care of—oh wait the bullies just threw it under the train! And now she’s gonna get raped by some big guy named Shota. Great, just great. But wait! What’s this? A weird website? A mysterious gun? Magic powers? Magic powers that MURDER PEOPLE?!?!!?! Yup you’re a killer now Asagiri, but hey here’s Not-Dio to bail you out! Now go kill more people, because this is Gantz now on top of being Madoka. Way to go.

To say the least, Magical Girl Site is easily the most horrifying 23 minutes of anime I have sat through since The Labyrinth of Grisaia. Every time you look at this and think “whelp that can’t get any worse”, it of course it does that…and then some. To be fair MGS is supposed to be a horror show, but this is just sick. I cannot for the life of me understand why I just elected to watch this. I cannot for the life of me understand why ANYBODY would want to watch this. You know what? Don’t watch it! Watch something else. Watch Laid Back Camp from last season. Watch Made in Abyss. Hell watch fucking SAO, I will honestly take SAO 25 over this that is how far I have lost my mind. BUT DO NOT WATCH MAGICAL GIRL SITE. DON’T DO IT!!!!

AND DON’T WATCH LABYRINTH OF GRISAIA EITHER! – Lord Dalek

Steins;Gate 0

The first season of Steins;Gate was an intriguing mess all those years ago. The first few episodes were trash, and there was no hint that the series would get good, but then by the halfway point, the series suddenly changed and got really interesting. Sometimes, I wonder if that was a freak accident, as the writer’s other works like Robotics;Notes and Occultic;Nine have never reached those highs. Could it have been that they unknowingly wrote a good story when they were otherwise focused on unambitious dating sim scenarios? Because I want to know what we’re getting this time. Are we getting a cool take on time travel that proves to break the character physically and mentally? Or will we get more bullshit featuring Luka and Feyris?

Thankfully, the premiere leans toward the former. Mere months after the events of the first season, Okabe is now suffering from PTSD and requires hypnotherapy to get by. What used to be a zest for scene-chewing and mad science has been replaced by shell shock and paranoia. Even assurances from the girl he saved through timeline leaping hasn’t helped him. And just as he’s figured out how to hide it from his friends, friends from the future come back to warn him of World War III. New advances in technology plague his thoughts, and the fate of the world is once again a venture he must take.

But then the 21-year-old who looks like she’s 12 shows up, and Okabe calls her a “legal loli” just in case we didn’t notice. I don’t get it. As soon as the series enthralls me with something compelling, it takes a break to deliver some stupid harem cliché. Maybe that made sense for the first season since they didn’t know if audiences would want to keep up with the plot without being pandered to, but Steins;Gate became popular. Popular enough to get a movie and this sequel. This installment has no excuse to continue waving shiny keys in my face instead of focusing on what’s important. Unless the writer has certain urges that demand him to write with his pants off. Certainly explained the girl in Occultic;Nine. – BloodyMarquis

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

When is Sword Art Online NOT Sword Art Online? When it…

• Isn’t written by Reki Kawahara

• Isn’t illustrated by ABEC.

• Doesn’t star Kirito.

• Doesn’t star Asuna.

• Doesn’t feature any of Kirito’s harem.

• Barely makes any references to previous seasons of Sword Art.

• Has characters that are actually interesting and well written.

• Is incredibly well paced and actually entertaining.

• Is completely lacking in straight-up idiot or perverted trash creeper villains

• Is completely lacking in random fanservice

• Is completely lacking in contrived plot devices akin to a bad visual novel like…oh I don’t know Super Cancer AIDS.

• Ends its episode on an actually surprising and clever twist.

When is Sword Art Online NOT Sword Art Online? When its actually good. Come back in October for the real shitshow. — Lord Dalek