Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Review

Posted on March 19, 2022 by dreager1

It’s definitely good to be in an age where all the big anime films get to go to theaters now. It’s nice having that complete experience there and the audience was pretty engaged throughout the experience. Seemed like a mix of people who knew the future events and anime onlies. There was certainly one guy the whole time who thought Maki was quite mean and well, she is rather aggressive with the main character for a while but she mellows out by the end. All in all Kaisen’s definitely a great film and I look forward to seeing how the next one stacks up.

The movie starts by introducing us to Yuta Okkotsu. If you saw season 1 of the show you’ll likely remember him getting a lot of hype throughout. He hasn’t gotten to appear yet but the others mention him as being a big threat so you get to see how he made it there. As a kid Yuta became engaged to his best friend Rika. Unfortunately she was hit by a car and died almost immediately afterwards but their connection was so strong that a curse came between them and now Rika lives on eternally as Yuta’s protector. Any who would dare stand in his way will get obliterated by her. This has depressed Yuta to the point of being suicidal but then he is contacted by Gojo, the strongest sorcerer of the human world.

He takes Yuta to Jujutsu High where he will become a sorcerer. He joins the first years Maki, Panda, and Toge. Yuta may not be strong on his own yet but his cursed spirit Rika is incredibly powerful to the point where Yuta is considered to be a special grade fighter. Unfortunately this has also caught the attention of the evil sorcerer Geto. Can Yuta stay alive long enough to master his abilities and free the curse on Rika so that she can be free or will he be defeated and the modern timeline isn’t what we think?

The movie moves at a fairly quick pace. Yuta appears and gets recruited within a few minutes. Then you have the origin story with Rika thrown in very quickly and more details are spread in throughout the movie. We get several missions so you could see as Yuta improves his abilities. There is a little time skip near the end so we don’t get to see the exact point Yuta goes from being a decent member of the team to a super powerful one but it helps make the final battle more intense. When Yuta suddenly shows up with all kinds of new abilities and techniques, you can tell that he’s been training very hard.

It’s also nice seeing Yuta in the younger days here. He almost feels like a completely different character from the Yuta I’m used to. He’s more like your classic Shonen lead here even if he might seem to have a bit more of a subtle edge than others. He was quick to volunteer to destroy Maki’s clan along with her and it shows how he values his friends above all else. I like Yuta in all of his appearances so far so he’s a character with a lot of range. He may start off as timid but ultimately he still steps up to do the right thing when it counts.

He is also a quick learner and doesn’t shrink away from combat. The way he handles Rika is also part of what makes him a great character. He never goes through a phase where he is afraid of Rika or blames her for everything. Even when he’s upset he just blames himself and never tries to make this appear to be her fault. It was a mature way of handling things since Rika was just doing her best to help him. Perhaps it was not in quite the way he was hoping since she could be quite violent but she is a cursed spirit at this point so it’s likely not easy to hold herself back.

While we don’t get to see the human Rika much, she was definitely a very solid character. She is extremely loyal as evidenced by her cursed spirit form and always had Yuta’s back. She really helped to make things as easy as possible on Yuta and I appreciate that she stood up to the bullies. Yeah it felt a little hard to believe that her first 3 victims survived the attack. I suspect this was a way to make sure that Rika never turned too close to the dark side but the way we saw their bodies mangled and the amount of blood that they lost….I don’t see how they could have possibly survived. Well, good on Rika I suppose.

As always Gojo is a very fun character here as well. When you have a character this powerful you do have to suspend a little disbelief for how he doesn’t just obliterate everyone. It feels like he could have dismantled his opponent and kept on going unless he has grown exponentially stronger in the year after this prequel takes place. You could say that he’s sandbagging a little as well but from how the movie’s story went you feel like he would want to be there in the climax.

Either way he’s definitely a fun character as always. I liked that he made it clear to the elders that he would protect Yuta if they tried to murder him. He’s always been the kind of guy who stands against corruption and that’s what I like to see. As you’d expect with a film like this there is a really big climax so you get a ton of guest stars and cameos from the rest of the Kaisen verse. It was nice seeing Todo and the crew as well as all of the pros. They may not get to be here a lot but they all get to use their signature attacks which is fun. I always enjoy seeing everyone come together for the climax for some action.

Of course the biggest roles go to Yuta’s teammates so lets talk about them. Maki gets a large role as she is teamed up with Yuta in the first mission and they get to hang out a bit. She has her own baggage which is touched upon in this film a little bit. As a result Maki’s gotten to be rather aggressive and always picking fights since she feels the need to prove herself. I tend to like this character type and Maki does well here. Ultimately her fighting style means the character would likely be limited against stronger opponents but she still does her best to fight back and also helps to improve Yuta’s close combat skills quite a lot.

Panda probably gets the smallest role out of the 3 but he gets to have the longest fight against Geto which helps to even that out. He really did well all things considered and was able to move quickly enough to hit Geto while also repelling the spirits. That’s not an easy thing to do. His fans should definitely pleased with his role. Then you have Toge who does his best to try and get Yuta to fit in. The fact that he can’t really talk at all for fear of using his abilities makes this a bit difficult though.

I’ve always had a major problem with Toge’s abilities before and the movie doesn’t change that. Just using a single word causes him to be in absolutely terrible condition. With the throat medicine he can do a little better but when your ability’s drawback is that huge it just doesn’t seem worth it. It’s a great ability but I think they should give him enough durability to be able to use it a few more times. It would definitely make his technique a lot more dangerous.

Then we have the main villain Geto. The villain has some depth to him as his goals are quite grand but in the meantime he keeps up a good front so he is able to earn a lot of money. A lot of the times it feels like the villain wouldn’t bother putting up a front even though it would cost him a lot in the long run. So it was a good way to show that Geto was quite smart and wouldn’t be falling for those kind of traps. It’s also impressive that he can fight from both long and short range. Not just any kind of opponent can do that.

So I liked him quite a bit. He makes for a memorable villain. He also has a whole team of villains with him for the attack but there isn’t enough time for any of them to get a lot to do. They seemed interesting enough and I’ll give the author credit for giving them all distinct designs and character designs. There’s just no way to give them enough to do to make them really memorable without stretching the film out another 30 minutes or so. Of course I would definitely be cool with that but I can see how it wouldn’t be needed.

The soundtrack is excellent as expected. You get a few new lyrical songs here and a lot of solid tunes. They really help to enhance the scenes and you can feel the danger in every moment. As I mentioned earlier, the pacing here is fairly quick and the music’s always moving quickly as a result too. It doesn’t mean there is a fight scene every moment of course and the big fights tend to be in the second half but there’s always something going on and any time you think it’s about time for another action scene to pop up, it does.

As always Mappa delivers with the animation as well. The action scenes are really good and the hand to hand (Or rather blade to blade) fights are extremely fast and savage. The choreography is excellent and you can feel the power behind the hits. These are the kinds of fights that you figure will age well forever. Even 20 years from now you won’t be able to deny that these are great fight scenes. Not surprisingly my favorite battle is the one between Geto and Yuta. It’s a fight that the film builds up for a while so you know it’ll be good but even with the time skip you may not be prepared for quite how good Yuta is.

The action can get intense but I wouldn’t say the film is too violent. The most disturbing scene is likely when one guy’s head is stretched apart by demons. That one was definitely a gruesome way to die but for the most part the attacks are limited to the combatants or aren’t too intense like that. So I wouldn’t say there’s anything extra to worry about beyond the usual action you would expect to see here.

The movie has its share of humor which lands well. The characters tend to have rather crazy facial expressions whenever Gojo mentions something out of the blue or is messing with them. The chibi effects are used well and since Yuta is out of the loop on everything, he tends to have some good reactions. It never gets excessive so it’s just enough to keep that nice balance. The writing is also really solid. Outside of the Gojo power level moment I wouldn’t say I had any other big items to mention. Even the romance here with Yuta and Rika was decent enough. I’m usually not all for the romances in films but this one was executed well. No drama, rebounds, or any crazyness here. Just two good friends who hit it off and their bond even surpassed death.

I guess on the power levels part I’d give a small mention to Gojo just letting Geto run out in the first place when he shows up with the crew. (All roads go through Gojo I suppose) I think with his speed and ability Gojo could have saved the hostages and stopped Geto. Again I guess that’s just what happens when you have someone as impressively powerful as Gojo. You expect him to solve everything when he’s around.

Now the film does have an after credits scene which is great since you should always have that. I think I would have picked something a little more exciting as the final scene to be honest but it’s nice enough. It’s more of a happy scene to confirm some characters in the present. Won’t say much more than that to keep you in the dark about it, but as always that means you should stay past the credits.

Finally the question you’ve been wondering. Would Yuta in this film be able to defeat Yuji from the TV Show? If you include Rika then I would say Yuta wins without question. It’s hard to see Yuji being able to defend himself from a two pronged attack like this. If Rika is out of the picture then Yuji wins because he’s just a better street brawler and has more control over his black flash techniques. Rika should always be counted in a Yuta battle though so as of now the original main character wins. That’s just how it goes.

Overall, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 was definitely a great film with a lot of replay value. The action was on point and it made for a very solid introduction to Yuta. I always like the idea of building up two main characters but not having them meet for a long time. The longer you wait, the bigger the payoff when it finally happens. It’s rare to see this though. Beyblade (Manga only), Seraph of the End, Fate/Zero, and a very few select others have done this but it’s very rare. After all, it’s tougher than it sounds to have two characters keep getting separate plots and adventures without having them tie in since you have to be careful that neither side feels rushed all the time. Kaisen’s a good example of a series doing this well as you are definitely ready for Yuta to meet Yuji. I’d definitely recommend checking this one out whether you have watched the anime or not. I would say it’s fairly friendly to newcomers as the TV show events are not really referenced so this can feel like more of a stand alone.

Overall 8/10

One Piece: Episode of Chopper Plus: Bloom in Winter, Miracle Sakura Review

Posted on March 13, 2022 by dreager1

One Piece has the next arc remake with this movie tackling the Tony Tony Chopper arc. While this arc is not considered to be one of the stronger ones and tends to pale in comparison to the new ones, it’s always nostalgic to see the old team. I’d say the crew also learned from the last movie remake and made sure that this one had longer fights and a longer length in general so it felt more like a complete experience. It’s still hard to do a whole arc in one movie but I’d say they did a good job with this one.

The movie starts with the gang on the ship as usual but then Nami gets seriously ill with some kind of virus. She is fading fast and so the heroes stop by a local island to find a doctor. Unfortunately all of the doctors are gone except for one who is regarded as a witch named Dr. Kureha. She lives alone atop a giant mountain so Luffy will have to try and carry Nami there. The main obstacles in his way are: The terrain which is naturally dangerous, Nami’s health which is fragile right now so Luffy can’t fight or make too many sudden movements, and the Wapol pirates who hav e returned to retake the island. Can Luffy save Nami in time or is it too late?

While the whole crew it here, Luffy does most of the work. Zoro and Franky get to beat up some minions and Sanji fights some of the animals but for the most part the rest of the crew is written out. The way they got Sanji out of the big fights was the most awkward though as he injures his back somehow and can’t fight anymore. That scene was really hard to buy. Sanji’s back gave out just like that? I’d have preferred him to lose to one of the pirates instead since at least he would have gone down fighting.

As for the villains, there are two main ones here. First up is Wapol who was in the original arc as well. The guy may not have been super powerful but he does his best with the chomp chomp fruit. He gets a rather big powered up form at the end which may not have been enough to save him but it looked cool enough. Then he has a brother named Musshuru who was made up for this version. He looks rather skilled as he is able to trade blows with Luffy and keep at it for a while. I can’t say he was a very interesting villain but I’m always up for some good fights.

After all, that’s part of the fun in this movie. The characters get to see a lot of action this time. Also, the animation style is very distinct. It’s going for a bit more of an abstract feeling at times with a different color set than usual. I wouldn’t say it beats the classic style but it does help the film stand out which is an important thing in a movie. You want it to feel extra special and this is one way to go about that.

The soundtrack has your typical One Piece themes. Nothing very new and different but they always sound good so I didn’t have a problem with that. The music tunes are fitting for the scenes that they’re in. You can feel Luffy’s determination as he climbs the mountain while the music is going and why he’s a solid lead. The film has its share of emotional moments after all and the soundtrack balances them pretty well.

There are two main doctors here, the one from the flashbacks and the one in the present. In the present we have Dr. Kureha who has done well to continue practicing medicine even when she sees all of her colleagues “vanishing” or being directly captured by the villains. It’s a risky line of work but she doesn’t falter and definitely ends up being a really solid character. She’s the kind of character who has a tough time actually voicing her true feelings but will always help silently.

Dr. Hiriluk is the other character but I did not like him. His personality type is that he’s a really nice guy who is chasing a dream that is nearly impossible to achieve. He wants to make the Sakura blossoms bloom in this winter land despite everyone telling him that this is crazy. Along the way he meets up with Tony Tony Chopper and the two of them become close friends. It’s all good so far but then Hiriluk realizes that he will be dying soon from an incurable disease.

He then makes the wrong choice by shooting at Chopper to make him go away and to get some distance between them. Chopper had been traumatized by guns before so this felt like a really cheap move by the Doctor. I also think he should have just been upfront with Chopper about this. Tell him that death is near and then they can at least enjoy some happy days together at the end. It is much better than trying to destroy your reputation and friendships. So I lost a lot of respect for the Doctor at that point.

Finally we have Tony Tony Chopper who is a nice enough guy. He was never my favorite member of the Strawhats as the guy isn’t much of a fighter and I don’t think his comedy scenes work as well as some of the others but he still does have his moments where he helps out. Ultimately Luffy and friends are able to get him to a better spot but he gets outshined by all of them here.

Overall, Episode of Chopper is a fun adventure. If this is your first way of seeing the arc then you should still be fine. This movie does a good job of recapping things. Some of the events are a little different like we have some members of the team who shouldn’t be around yet. That might confuse you a little when you go back to the show and see them introduced but I want to say that it’s a very small amount of people who would have actually started the series with the movie recaps instead of watching the show. The movie is a good action adventure film in the end. It’s not trying to be much more than that and doesn’t need to be. Whether you like the franchise or not, you should have a good time with this one.

Overall 7/10

One Piece The Movie: Episode of Alabasta: The Desert Princess and the Pirates Review

Posted on February 27, 2022 by dreager1

Alabasta’s definitely one of the most well known One Piece arcs. For those who don’t answer with Arlong Park, this is the arc where people would say One Piece really got good. We got the first big villain group with a ton of memorable fighters and everyone got some action. I do think it’s an arc that has aged well but one that has been long since surpassed by adventures like Water Seven, Marineford, and Wano. Still, it’ a pretty solid adventure although I would say it’s weaker than the show version in just about every way so that’s the version that you would want to watch instead.

The film starts off with Princess Vivi as a child riding Pell throughout the kingdom of Alabasta. Things were really good back then. She then wakes up in the present aboard the Going Merry. She is with a band of pirates known as the Strawhats and a mysterious guy appears who can assume the form of anyone he has shapeshifted into before. He can add new people by touching their face. One of the faces he used was of King Cobra, Vivi’s father. She is worried that Alabasta is in danger so the crew sets a course for the kingdom immediately. She as not wrong, the terrorist known as Crocodile has set his sights on the land. Can the Strawhats stop him?

Now from the jump you’re assuming that the movie can’t possibly adapt a whole arc in one movie so some concessions are going to have to be made. That’s normal but at the same time it feels like the fights are what loses out most of the time. Some of the fights are practically off screen or we just see the end of them. Take the iconic Zoro vs Mr. 1 fight. It’s so short here that you’re barely able to get into it. I think the film could have focused on more of that and instead cut out the Robin flashback and some of the Alabasta flashbacks. If you’re reliving the arc then odds are that you’re doing so for the fights right?

Each fight just feels so short and you wish they could have been extended more. Even the Luffy vs Crocodile fights are pretty short when you really think about it. Of course they do get a bit more length to them compared to the others though. Things move at a very fast pace at least, you certainly can’t say that the story was dragging or anything like that. While I wish the fights were longer, it is still impressive that the movie went all the way to the end though.

There’s just no reason to choose this over actually watching the anime itself unless you desperately need to save a ton of time. In that sense this could be better as a rewatch or refresher for fans but if you’re a big enough fan to be revisiting an arc then you’ll probably just be watching the episodes again. Considering that this is a movie I kind of expected the animation to be better but I wouldn’t even say that is very impressive. Maybe it’s slightly better than the show?….I may not even go that far.

The animation style seems a bit different like it’s going for the more stretchy style like in Naruto vs Pain except that was stretchy so you could have terrifically fast fight scenes with a lot of energy. You didn’t really have that here so then if the fight’s going to be slower you may as well go with a more detailed style and that would be for the best. I did like the sound effects used when punching the sand though. That part did feel grander than usual.

I feel as though the film just wasn’t particularly high budget though. Maybe that’s why they had to rely on some extra CGI shots and a ton of still shots like this was a manga. Unfortunately those are also reused which ends up hurting the visual experience. So….the visuals didn’t quite live up to what this could have been which is what I’m getting at here. The soundtrack is fun enough though, has that classic One Piece feel to it for sure.

For newcomers it is probably less friendly to jump into than films like One Piece Gold or Strong World but I guess you just have to get on board and try to follow along with what’s going on. The story of Alabasta still hits right. It was a smart plan of Crocodile’s to use shapeshifting to get the country to fight amongst themselves. It certainly would have worked really easily if not for Luffy and the gang stepping in. For once I can’t even blame the civilians because the plan was quite thorough even including whole camps and villages being completely wiped out.

Crocodile works as a very solid villain. He’s smart enough to know when someone is trying to betray him and is also powerful enough to put a stop to that right away. Even now he is one of the more impressive fighters and the ability to turn into sand is really good. Of course haki would eventually wipe out that advantage but at this point in the story it really made him someone who could not go down very easily. His fights with Luffy were definitely a blast.

His group really gets no time to develop though. You won’t find any of them to be particularly memorable as they are taken down in short order. Bon Clay has the biggest role by far since he is the one who really jump starts the adventure by showing up and using his shapeshifting. It’s a good ability to have but mostly in non combat scenarios. Once you’re in a fight though then you need to have something else. Fortunately he does have his kicking abilities which are apparently good enough to even give Sanji a run for his money.

As for the crew, well they show up to take names. Zoro even looks like the Captain when the film first starts as he is in the front and all. He looks very capable throughout the movie and wins his fight with dignity so I’m reminded why he is my favorite Strawhat. Sanji definitely takes his share of Ls here like letting Bon Clay manipulate him during the fight but ultimately comes through for the team. Usopp has one of his best roles here since there’s not a lot of time for his comedic moments with how fast everything is moving. As a result he gets to tank one of the more painful looking hits and keeps on going.

You get the feeling that Usopp isn’t quite as powerful as some of the others but he certainly looks brave here. He came through when it counted. Chopper doesn’t get to do much but seems like a nice support. Nami even wins her fight 1 on 1 which was really critical. She’s not usually someone you have on the front lines so that was really impressive. As for Luffy, well he definitely loses quite a bit here even when everyone’s hopes are resting on him but he comes through in the end which is what counts. It was fun to see the film keep cutting away to everyone saying how Luffy was going to win while he was getting absolutely demolished in the fight.

Robin gets some foreshadowing here as we see a bit of her past but the film doesn’t really end up finishing that plot. Of course that’s what happens when your film just adapts one story arc in the middle of an ongoing. To be fair, it wouldn’t feel like a cliffhanger or anything with how the film ends. On that I can at least say that the film does have a true ending here.

Overall, Episode of Alabasta is a good film, but a weak adaption. I don’t think it’s impossible to adapt the arc into a movie effectively but you need to change up the pacing a bit. The fights absolutely needed to be longer to have really done the story justice. I also think that as a movie this film should have looked a lot better. Mainly the film’s only weaknesses are from when you compare it to the show though. If I saw this as a big One Piece movie in a universe where Alabasta did not exist in the manga, that would probably help it. It’s why I still say it’s a pretty good movie. You’ll have fun with it and it’s a nice way to see the adventure from another angle but of course you’re better off watching the show version so you get all the details.

Overall 7/10

Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold Review

Posted on February 21, 2022 by dreager1

It’s definitely good to have the Gold Saints back in action. They mostly just got wrecked a lot in the original series although some god to have their moment to shine in the Hades arc. This time they have a whole show to themselves where they can really get to cut loose and it works really well. The show can be rather formulaic so you know what to expect but it ends up being a great show from start to finish.

The show starts with Aiolia being mysteriously revived over in Asgard. He’s unsure of how this could have happened as he is sure that he died. Well, no matter. Aiolia has to head over to Hades to back up the bronze saints but he is asked by Lyfia to stay and save Asgard. The place has become very corrupt as the God Warriors serve Andreas now. Hilda is sick and unable to take control and Odin is sleeping as usual. If something isn’t done quickly, all of Asgard will fall as the villains raise up the world tree.

Usually Aiolia could just end this in an instant but it won’t be so easy this time. For starters, the World Tree absorbs the energy of the Gold Saints so their abilities are heavily nerfed. Making things even worse is that the God Warrior have their abilities amplified at the same time so what ends up happening is a double disadvantage. On the bright side, the rest of the Gold Saints have been resurrected as well. Fighting as a team has never been their strong suit but perhaps Aiolia can rally the group to save Asgard. Then they will head over to help Seiya and friends.

I may as well say now that they don’t get to help Seiya and friends but you probably guessed that since it would have completely changed the timeline. That could be fun in a way as a massive plot twist but keeping things separate isn’t a bad idea. It’s fun to just see the Gold Saints hanging out and we get more of their personalities here since there’s some down time. In the main series you certainly didn’t have time to see the Gold Saints just hang out and grab a drink. I would say the first part of the show is more of a creature of the week format as they beat up on a poor God Warrior with their own God armor and then end up fainting. Rinse and repeat until we get more structure.

It’s not a bad set up though and will remind you of the classic Saint Seiya structure. At no point would I say this show gets close to the original but it still works well. The first reason for this is since this is an original story, you don’t know how it’s really going to play out. After seeing the classic adventures in a few variations, it’s fun to see a brand new ordeal here. Even the tone and feel is a bit different since the main characters are the big shots here and not the Bronze Saints surpassing their limits all the time. We’ve got a bit of a mystery subplot with how Lyfia will randomly stare at the Saints once in a while with a dangerous look on her face and of course the tensions of Saints acting in another jurisdiction.

The animation isn’t great here but it works well enough. They put in some extra effort for the climax as well. I still wish we can get a truly top notch Saint Seiya animation at some point though. Some of the movies look great and take the lead there but I’m talking about a Studio Pierrot or Ufotable kind of production. With how flashy all of the Saint designs are it would be really easy to make the fights look amazing. Regardless, it works well enough.

As for the soundtrack, I wouldn’t say there are any real standout themes here. The music all feels almost free domain at times. The opening has a very good opening beat but then it fades from there. Also, there are a ton of sound effects in the song that make it hard to just listen to casually. I think they could have done better on this front. There are a few decent themes scattered within but I wouldn’t call this a very good soundtrack.

Before I jump into the characters part, I also have to give the series credit for directly referencing the old Asgard arc from the show. As an anime exclusive arc I’m sure they may have been tempted to ignore it but that arc was quite solid so I’m glad that it was still relevant. We learn about how these new God Warriors came into place and it makes sense since the Bronze Saints didn’t hold back against the last ones. It also reminds you that these guys would be easily dispatched if not for the tree messing up with the balance the whole time. Take that away and things would be different.

All right so Aiolia is the main character here and he makes sense as the pick. He’s easily the character who is the closest to being like one of the original characters. He is a hero who does the right thing and never wavers. That’s something that most of the other Gold Saints could learn a thing or two about. Aiolia also tends to lose quite a few fights here as a result but by exploding his cosmos he is usually able to win in round 2 or make a last second comeback. While most of the Saints seem fixated on doing whatever they want or protecting Athena, Aiolia seems to actually believe in justice which is important.

He was always one of my favorite Gold Saints and he certainly looks good here. We also get to see Aiolia’s older brother Aiolos. I was surprised that he was resurrected since he died so long ago but I was definitely happy to see him. He’s as tough as you’ll remember from back in the day and he gets a good role here. It’s not a particularly big role until the end so you have to wait, but it’s worth it. It’s safe to say that he’ll always be the best Gold Saint. Not saying he’s the strongest but he’s the coolest.

I never cared for Mu much. Usually he prefers to just watch all of the fights instead of doing anything which is annoying in itself. Then he went full on traitor in the Hades arc and kept on sinking and sinking. Well, in this show he’s not bad. He still seems a bit weaker than the other Gold Saints but the guy is more of a defensive fighter so that makes sense. When your main technique is a big shield…it’s inevitable that somebody’s going to break it. That’s how these things always go. Mu does his detective work in the show and helps find the weakness to the tree though.

Usually Dohko is in the same camp as Mu in terms of just watching everything the whole time but he gets a little more involved here. As one of the more powerful Gold Saints I expected him to do more than what he did. He’s still around for some battles though. Then there’s Aldebaran who is still the strong man of the group but his fighting style is what really lets him down most of the time. The guy always crosses his arms as his fighting stance which doesn’t work. I mean his big attack is then unfolding his arms with a great push. What kind of combo is that?

Aldebaran badly needs some new material. I think you can only get away with that if you’re one of the stronger Gold Saints and it seems like this guy would get smoked by most of the others. Scorpio Milo is one of the Gold Saints who looks really solid the whole time. He just wants a good fight and is eager to fight the villains. He also takes Camus’ betrayal very seriously and just wants to beat the guy up. He ended up being a lot more engaging than I expected him to be.

Unfortunately Camus is the perfect contrast here as that guy looks awful. It wasn’t enough for him to be a traitor once, he has to do it again? His whole character here is that he’s with the Gold Saints. Yeah, they explain why but the reason is as shallow as it gets and I don’t buy into it being reasonable. So I was rooting for the Gold Saints to absolutely devastate this guy in the fights. Just get him out of there asap. There was no coming back from this.

Shura is one of the Gold Saints who doesn’t get much of a role. With 13 episodes and 12 Saints it makes sense that some wouldn’t get much of a role. Especially when some Saints get a considerable role so there is even less time for the others. Shura gets to prove that his sword is the best though. Aprodite gets the smallest role but to help make up for it, the writers made sure that his moment really counted at the end. So in a way you could say that Aphrodite ended up being one of the more crucial pieces in the whole show.

Deathmask gets an entire character arc here. He starts off as a very annoying guy who refuses to hel and just gets in the way the whole time. Definitely the kind of character that will make you shake your head. Fortunately after that he starts his journey of recovery although it takes him a long enough time that things get a bit tragic for him. By the end he’s learned what it means to be a hero but it sure takes him a long time. He was still one of my least favorite characters by the end of it. He’s lucky that Aiolia didn’t knock him out when they first met.

Speaking of which, the show continues the urban legend about how a fight between Golden Saints will take 100 days or something like that. It’s a great story but we’ve seen many Gold Saint battles at this point and they’re still over rather quickly. 100 days would really imply that their powers and abilities are exactly equal but this just isn’t the case. I think the Saints tend to overestimate themselves a bit which ultimately ends up coming back to bite them. I do like the bravado though.

Now we come to the big 2 Saints who get a lot of hype in the show. First up is Gemini Saga and whenever he shows up all of the villains start to panic. I like that he is given this much respect because he has definitely earned it. Gemini Saga was the highest ranking Saint who was even in line to become the Pope after all. (Aiolos was the #1 choice though) While there is always a fun debate to be had on whether Virgo Shaka is stronger, either way they are near the top. Even while nerfed Gemini Saga was able to hold his own against various opponents here. He always has a very cool demeanor to him and I was glad that he still had that presence here.

Finally you have Virgo Shaka who really did look quite good here. He was even portrayed as a bit of a mastermind and really came through when the team needed him. His attacks have the most variety to them and since he is the man closest to god in this verse, he is able to even handle the various demi gods and actual gods that show up in this show. Ultimately he still isn’t unbeatable or anything but when he shows up you can expect that the villains are going to have a tough time.

Andreas is the main villain of the series and he’s your classic evil dictator. The guy acts really nice the whole time but he is tricking people to be used in live experiments and only cares about conquering the world. His nice personality is all an act but unfortunately one that works well. Everyone trusts the guy and the sad irony is he probably could have become the King legitimately with how people liked the guy. I guess he would never settle for being second fiddle to Odin though. So Andreas is okay but I wouldn’t say he is super memorable.

Loki makes for a much more interesting villain and that guy is also a lot more powerful. As another true god in the Seiya verse, you would expect him to be strong too. Perhaps not as strong as Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, Athena, and Odin as the 5 great gods here but he would be about as strong as Hades’ two right hand men. Of course we canm’t take this standing too seriously as Athena always looks super weak and Odin can’t do anything for himself. Loki also appears to be stronger than Hypnos and Thanatos, that or Seiya and the gang are just that good.

Either way you should be satisfied with how Loki looks. He shows up and starts to dominate right out of the gate. His abilities are the real deal and the fight actually goes on for quite a while. He’s got the kind of confidence you would expect from such a villain too. On the hero side we don’t have any gods to aid the heroes but we do have the heroine Lyfia who is always around for moral support. There are quite a few twists about her seemingly evil mode. For her normal state though, she’s nice enough. The show starts to mess around with a possible romance involving her but never really goes through with it so we can write this off as normal admiration.

She certainly owes the heroes a lot for saving her people and the people of Asgard owe her even more since nobody was helping. Lyfia was really the only person trying to stop the evil in the kingdom which paints a very bad light on the rest of these guys. She can’t really fight but considering that everyone here’s an easy planet buster it’s not like she should be expected to battle. Just summoning everyone here was enough.

Frodi is the main God Warrior here and while that means he’s a big sucker who bought into all of the villain plans, at least he means well. I don’t usually have a lot of patience for these guys who are just following the rules and don’t think about the truth. I should think the whole thing is pretty obvious when Hilda is “sick” and Lyfia is trying to help take down Asgard’s ruler. Shouldn’t it make you think a bit if the royal family isn’t happy with what’s going on? I would have just liked this guy to try thinking ahead a bit more. In terms of ability and design though this guy was fun.

Fafner is the worst member. Every villain group tends to have that one creep and that’s Fafner in this case. The guy likes to run human experiments to make the villain tech work better. He uses people to power up the tree and to increase his own energy. The guy can’t fight nearly as well as the others and usually gets taken down quickly but any scene with this guy is usually annoying.

Heracles is the power member of the villains but I didn’t find him to be very impressive personally. He gets wrecked by Aldebaran really early on and never came back from that. He is one of the only God Warriors to not get any kind of convincing win. The guy talks a big game that he just can’t back up and doesn’t have many long range options. When you’re weaker than the others and are the “power hitter” of the group then that’s a problem.

Surtr is the guy who guilt trips Camus the whole time but I don’t even blame him for that. That’s all on Camus for being a chump here. In battle Surtr is decent. He prefers not to just jump into battle and relies on strategy but that shouldn’t be mistaken for being weak. He just fights in a smart way but if he has to get into the ring personally then he will. This is why the guy’s such a big threat. I liked him well enough and he was one of the better members of the group.

Another solid member was Sigmund and this guy has more of an honor code than the others which is always appreciated. This guy wants to win on his own merits and as a reward of sorts he gets to fight Gemini Saga. I liked this guy through and through. Of course he is still on the wrong side of things and didn’t think any of this through but at least he isn’t using any cheap tricks and that goes a long way.

Baldr is the last big member of the group and he’s the one who became an actual immortal which makes him very dangerous. His fight against Virgo Shaka is one of the best parts in the whole series as a result. Both of these guys are a lot stronger than the average fighter and you can feel it in each of their moves. They can counter any attack thrown their way which leads to a lot of back and forth. I liked Baldr quite a bit and he has a fairly emotional backstory. I thought it was sadder than most of the others at least.

So the show has a very solid cast of heroes and villains which always goes a long way to making the show great as well. As you can probably guess, there is a lot of nonstop action here as well. The battles never really end as each episode will throw something at you. Then the climax is a bunch of other battles in a row before we get the big team up. Seeing the Gold Saints team up is also a very nice moment. Soul of Gold did well to take the premise of having the Gold Saints in the front lines and making the most of it. It’s why this works so well as a spinoff.

Overall, Soul of Gold was definitely great. I really didn’t have any big issues with it. Of course it would be nice if the show was longer and could get more arcs but it would probably get more and more difficult to do this without having them get in the way of the main series. After a while it may be forced if the heroes aren’t able to get to Hades. The ending also could have been a bit different, I’d prefer many different options to how things played out here. In a way it’s because it feels like a bit of a cop out. The classic “If you didn’t watch the show then you didn’t miss anything” kind of feel. I always think making the whole show not feel important after all is a shame. It doesn’t take away from the experience but it would be nice to tell someone they have to watch this to find out what’s going on in the Saint Seiya saga. With the way the ending goes (Don’t worry, it’s not a dream) you can’t really say that but I would still highly recommend this to anyone who wants a good action story. In this case it is highly recommended you watch the classic Saint Seiya show first though.

Overall 8/10

Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files {Rail Zeppelin} Grace note Review

Posted on February 18, 2022 by dreager1

It’s time for the next installment in the Fate franchise. While Zero may not have ended up hitting it out of the park for me, it set up a pretty solid framework with the Grail War and this title takes place after that. While you never really think that El-Melloi will be entering a Grail War since that would really end up being a completely different kind of series, it has enough connections to the main adventures to stay hype. Throw in some fun mysteries and this ended up being a great ride.

The series starts off with an episode 0 which is easily the weakest episode in the series so you may as well start with 1 tbh. It sets up the world to those unfamiliar with Fate. Magic is something that most people live with and manipulate nowadays. Those of the Clock Tower are especially familiar with magic as they tend to train the most skilled mages. The main character here is Waver although he has now taken on the title of El-Melloi II in part because he is being blackmailed by Reines but also in part to prove that he can handle the job as the previous El Melloi died during the Holy Grail War. With his loyal friend Gray at his side, Waver teaches classes of promising students in the ways of magic. Waver also hopes to enter the next Holy Grail War so that he can see Iskandar one more time and get some closure for being one of the only survivors of the whole event.

It’s hard to even call this the full premise of the show because there’s a lot to unpack but what you mainly need to focus on is that this is a case by case series. Waver will always be thrown into some kind of magical mystery and has to solve it fast before the various magical departments start to make a mess of things. There is always a whole lot of infighting among the different magical groups and in a world where any of them can curse you in an instant, you have to tread carefully. I wouldn’t say Waver is always super diplomatic but he tries to at least keep up the appearance of being calm and collected.

So in episode 0 a cat ends up dying and it turns out that this was to lay a lethal curse on Waver. He has to quickly team up with his two students Flat and Svin as well as Gray to track the culprit down before it’s too late. Unfortunately as in Fate/Zero Waver is still very weak and did not have enough ability to save the cat. The cat is able to help to an extent thanks to Gray being able to sense its presence so they track down the culprit but starting your show off with an animal dying like that’s a pretty bad idea. As I said, you should probably just skip episode 0. Fortunately the rest of the series was strong enough to get things back on track.

Right from the start it’s also fair to say that you can feel the high production values here. The animation is really great. There’s a lot of detail in every scene and the colors are always striking. It’s definitely got the same kind of style as the main Fate titles and we also do get some fight scenes which go all out. Now, I wouldn’t quite put them on par with the bigger fights that Fate has to offer but it’s makes for a satisfying watch all the same. The battles have a lot of weight to them even if there aren’t a lot of them.

The soundtrack is also master class here. You have a lot of great tunes which have the same level of drama as Fate/Zero. I also liked the opening here quite a bit. It’s not really an action packed one or anything but works well for the mysteries with how ominous it is. Usually the music will start playing after some kind of dramatic statement and the opening starts so this is styled well. There was no expense spared in this title’s production, that’s for sure.

As for the main cast, they’re solid. Waver is much better than he was in the Fate/Zero days so I was glad to see that. This is the kind of improvement that helps a character go a long way. It would be nice if he could fight more but he has helped to bridge this gap with the knowledge that he has acquired. He knows enough to be a teacher after all and his theories/knowledge allow him to crack the many cases here. He’s like a Sherlock Holmes of the magical world. I imagine that the magical setting here makes it a little easier for the writers since you can keep on adding new concepts though.

Waver rarely shows any fear or anything like that and is perceptive. He’s just a strong all around lead and also knows when to back off and just let Gray do the fighting. It would be nice to see him enter the Grail War but ultimately you can’t fault him if he wants to back out as well since there would be a lot to lose and not a whole lot to gain at this point. For the most part there are rarely casualties in the Grail War outside of the combatants so he should be safe in that case. Even if his title is temporary, Waver has also crafted a whole new life now so why throw it all away?

As for Gray, she’s still a bit of a mystery. We still don’t know the full story behind her. She looks like Saber and is said to always be close to death which came in handy during episode 0. She seems to be a type of Pseudo servant like Mash from Grand Order although she isn’t amped up with technology or anything like that. Instead she carries around a talking cube who seems to be a personality that she created to nerf her abilities. When she has to go all out a Sword Art Online type voice rings out saying that the false personality has been disengaged and then she is able to fight harder.

I don’t know exactly where that’s going but she makes for a very intriguing character. I’m also glad that there is at least one big fighter on the hero side since it inevitably means that we can have some strong villains as well. Her big fights against Faker are some of the highlights of the show after all. Gray’s a very earnest character as well who always feels out of time but takes everything in stride. It’s like seeing a What If for a servant who sticks around after the Grail War to help in everyday life. She could crush almost every character in the cast but doesn’t have to fight like that too often. In a way Waver has a top notch bodyguard at all times though.

Reines makes for a fun heroine and a good troll character throughout the show. As mentioned, she really forced Waver into this. While she claims that she wasn’t going to murder him, it certainly seemed like that at different points in the flashback so I can see why he was getting nervous. Now she mainly teases him while helping out from the background. She’s often a lot more helpful than she lets on. She has the ability to detect magic with her eyes which is handy at first glance but there are so many downsides that I would not want to have it.

One such downside is that she gets intense pain spasms if the magical energy is too high. Considering that this is the case for all strong fighters, it gets to her quite a few times. She always has a cheerful disposition though and has some solid banter with the other elites at the Clock Tower. Reines can hold her own and once she is of age and gets the title formally, I’m sure she will do a great job. The anime has a lot of solid banter between many characters and she is certainly consistent in this.

Flat is one of Waver’s students and while he isn’t bad, he can be a bit boring. He’s a very by the books kind of kid who does well in class and takes everything seriously. As a result he’s seen as more responsible and does well but just doesn’t have much in the way of personality. Meanwhile Svin’s the go getter who is always trying his best. I like how he keeps trying to positively “curse” Waver by calling him things like “The Powerful Waver” or “The All Knowing Waver” since we learn in the first episodes that merely using titles next to someone’s name can actually cause good or bad things to happen to them.

So it was a nice way for Svin to try and help his teacher even if there was no effect. On the other hand, he’s got a big crush on Gray that’s so intense he is usually not able to talk to her much and gives her the impression that he doesn’t like her. There’s also some kind of berserk mode within him that causes him to lash out against Gray for some reason. This isn’t something that is delved into at all so it will remain a mystery. I guess it ties into his abilities and her near death state but it’s hard to say why there’s a connection. Waver is aware of it as he forbids Svin from being near Gray. It speaks badly of Svin’s willpower though.

With the opening episode out of the way, the next adventure is more of a flashback to see how Waver became El Melloi. He ended up getting kidnapped by a mage and met his future best friend Melvin as they had to team up and take the mage down. It was tough since neither one of them really have any powers but they were able to use evil spirits to get the guy by taking advantage of the temple. There was good strategy involved and it was a fun enough episode. Not really a mystery like some of the others but it was a good one shot.

Melvin also makes for a good character. He’s someone who is always on Waver’s side and he’s rich which is always handy. At the same time, it does seem like he will prioritize “fun” over everything else so even if it means that Waver will be in danger, he’ll take the risk. So you can trust Melvin to an extent but you probably don’t want to be around him or you could be in danger. He also seems to have some kind of terminal illness which pops up now and again.

We then get another quick mystery where someone has been murdered and there are a bunch of suspects in the estate. From research partners to family members and the maid, El Melloi has to figure out the true culprit quickly or the government will probably pick someone off at random. This is the first big appearance of Hishiri who will always be a thorn in Waver’s side. See, she’s from the Department of Policies and they just want results at all times. She makes this quite clear to Waver and so “Justice” will be served whether it is just or not. Often times she is basically used as a timer so Waver has to hurry. It was an interesting case and of course it does involve a lot of spellcasting and plotting in order to get the situation just right.

Hishiri is a fun villain. While she may help the heroes at times, I would consider her to be an antagonist because she will do whatever policies says no matter what. At the same time, if Waver will save her some time then she’ll help him out. It’s not like she’s actively malicious but to me she may as well be if she’s that calm about just grabbing innocent people. There’s even one case where she intentionally hides evidence which could have gone badly. It’s very rare where she is actually very helpful.

There’s also an episode about Waver finding out what happened to his favorite tea shop which closed down due to suspicious circumstances. It’s more of a low key episode although it is one of the few times we see his students fighting. Gray also gets an action scene of her own and I’m always up for that. They rarely let her go all out but when she powers up that’s really game over for these guys.

Now we get to the first big case. So there was this mage who created a bunch of lightning but was super sloppy and died. Now the strikes are getting more and more frequent which is putting the whole estate in. Waver is called in to help and find a way to dispel this while the holy grail is dangled in front of him like a carrot. If he helps out here then it will help his chances of being in the next Grail War. This one plays out like a classic mystery with the lightning slowly taking its victims and we have to see who is really responsible. Is someone actually causing these strikes to occur or is it just an accident? Hishiri certainly doesn’t think so and already believes she knows who is causing this but Waver has to be sure.

There are a lot of suspects as always and I think it’s fair to say that nobody really believes this is just random coincidence right from the start. That would have been really hard to buy. We get some action in the second half of this and the ending is definitely an interesting one. A character makes a very dicey decision involving a portal although….I don’t necessarily disagree with it. Honestly in that situation I would say it might even be the right move. There is also a bit of a cliffhanger leading into the Zeppelin arc.

Right before that arc though we get a ~~filler~~ slice of life episode with Gray, Reines, and Luvia hanging out. The three of them have fun at the mall until they are warped inside of a reality marble and have to get out. The thing is, who is targeting them and how do they get out of this? Luvia is a strong fighter but Reines can’t really fight and it’s risky on if Gray should show her true powers here. It’s a fun episode though, certainly a lighthearted one with low stakes but the dialogue is strong as always. The reveal on who the culprit was is also very unexpected and works as a solid twist.

Luvia doesn’t get a huge role in the show but at least she got one big episode here. Her hand to hand skills is refreshing to see as most humans in the series don’t seem to know how to fight all that well. Personally if I lived in a magical world like this I’d want to be able to defend myself but it doesn’t seem to be the highest priority for a lot of the mages.

Finally we have the 6 part Rail Zeppelin arc. Basically the Zeppelin is a train and on it is a big auction for magical eyes. You can buy and sell them at will here. Why does Waver care? Well, his piece of Iskandar’s cloak has been stolen and it will be impossible to summon him in the upcoming grail war if he does not have that. It’s imperative that he grabs this at all costs. Meanwhile someone is naturally murdered on the train so everyone is alert. Was it infighting between Spiritual Evocation and Policies? Was it the member of the Anti-Clock Tower faction who is on the train? One of the many sorcerers here? Waver will have to find out and quickly as the murderer may also be the thief that he is looking for.

We get quite a few new characters here of course although maybe not as many as you would think. It can be a little hard to choose who you think the suspect is at times because not all of the sorcerers really get a big role here. You have Leandra who is effectively the top member of the train. She makes sure things are going smoothly but perhaps wanted to shake things up a bit. She doesn’t do a lot in this but is around the whole time. There’s even a JoJo’s type summon which is part of the train itself and helps with transactions.

There is the ticketmaster Rodin who is always very ominous. As someone who’s always been around the train you can see how it would be easy for him to make a move. I liked his design for sure, you have to take him seriously after seeing the guy. Then you have Yvette who is one of Waver’s students but also likes teasing him to no end. She’s super rich and has many resources at her disposal. Naturally it wouldn’t be hard for her to have stolen his artifact if she really wanted too. I can’t say that she was one of the better characters though. Her teasing is more excessive and not quite as fun as Reines. Additionally there’s also not much more to her character than that.

Then there’s Olga and it’s fun to see her since her role in Grand Order was so small. At the same time because of that it’s hard to say that she’s ever truly a suspect since we know her future state. She isn’t quite as powerful now of course but she has a memorable role and helps out quite a bit. Things don’t go quite as well for her butler/assistant Trisha who doesn’t last very long here. Every train murder mystery needs its victim after all and this was her role.

Finally you have Karabo who is one of the Anti Clock Tower guys. The show doesn’t get into the whole factions part much but it’s probably self explanatory. The Cloc Tower is an elite group of sorcerers and training them for the Grail War. I’m sure many oppose the group on principle. Karabo wants to get rid of his eyes for reasons which are explained later on but the whole time you wonder if it’s worth it. Aside from the fact that losing your eyes is pretty bad, it seems like they won’t even give him normal ones in exchange so he’ll be blind.

It’s a magical world though so I’m sure he can buy new ones somewhere. The downside is he’ll lose his powers. His ability is that with his future eyes he is able to see events from the past by making contact with someone and of course can see his own past. The best part of the ability is that he can bring past attacks to the present. So for example if he throws a punch and misses, he can try to get you back to that spot later and then instantly resummon his old punch at any time. It means that the longer a fight goes on, the more he will be at an advantage.

The downside though is that he can’t control the eyes really well. Imagine having a painful experience or a sad memory and it will suddenly appear in front of you at any time. That’s not very easy to deal with, especially if it happens very often. The bad experiences will keep on piling up. It’s a unique downside to an ability as you don’t often see things like that. Karabo’s a fairly nuanced character as well and I liked him.

Then you have Faker who shows up as one of Iskandar’s allies from the distant past. Having a real servant here is a blast and she immediately leaves a big impact on the series. I can say that she single handily elevated the show up a star because along with her presence meant that we got some big fights between her and Gray. The show may not be a big action most of the time but having big fights for the climax is always a very good idea and the show made the most of it. I also liked Faker as a character quite a bit. She’s serious and knows how to fight but also has an honor code and won’t just be destroying people for no reason. She gives Gray a breather at one point when the heroine is clearly not doing so well and that does a lot for a character.

An honor code is huge for a villain because it separates the ones with no vision or who just won’t work for me from the big all stars. Faker’s also clearly stronger than Gray which makes sense since a servant should always beat a pseudo one. If she went all out from the beginning then the encounter would have been brief. Since she held back we got to have several fights which were all a blast. Then you have her summoner but as the arc is a mystery I won’t say who that is. He looks good though and clearly has a lot of plans at the ready. I see him being a big threat in the adventures to come, whenever we get the big continuation. Since I liked him here I’m definitely cool with that, it’ll be nice to see what he’s got up his sleeve.

Well, that brings us to the end of the adventure. It was definitely a great ride. It’s a title where you feel like they probably skipped some stories and adventures though. It’s hard to describe but it’s the little things like a supporting character appearing in back to back cases but it seems to be a big deal that he or she has returned. Things like that, but if it means getting to the big parts sooner then I can’t turn that down.

A big part of what makes the show fun aside from the big action scenes and top notch animation/soundtrack is that the mysteries are handled well. I do like a solid mystery any day and these cases are all very sound. It’s also unique because they all use many different magical concepts within them. Half of it may be things that are made up just for Fate but the concepts are always explained so you can follow along. It means that you may rarely ever get ahead of Waver since you don’t even know the rules of engagement but the explanations are always satisfying.

A good mystery should keep you engaged throughout and the show pulls that off. The cast is also solid enough to the point where you can enjoy even just the talking scenes or the more low key moments in between cases. There are also a lot of cameos from other Fateverse characters so they’re always fun to point out. Of course I’d love to see Shirou and the gang show up at some point but I suppose they may end up stealing the show as a result if that were to happen.

Overall, I would definitely recommend checking this show out. The name may be a bit of a mouthful but I just think of it as the EL Melloi show and that works just as well. Really the only weak episode here is episode 0 so feel free to duck out of that one and you’re still good. Naturally if you’re a fan of Fate/Zero then you’ll have a lot of fun with this one but it also works well as a stand alone adventure. Of course there will be a lot of flashbacks to events that you didn’t get to see first hand but there’s a bunch of context thrown in as well as little clues you can figure out since Waver keeps having the same dreams and visions. Fate has certainly been able to branch out in many different ways and has done a pretty good job of this. We’ll see what the next adventure has in store for the team!

Overall 8/10

Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation Review

Posted on February 14, 2022 by dreager1

It’s really been a super long time since I’ve read the Muhyo & Roji books. I was certainly surprised when it got a show pretty much out of nowhere but I guess the fans must have been loyal here. It’s a very retro kind of title and I’d say you can even feel that from the character designs and such. I thought the manga was decently good although nowhere near the top of Jump and would be more mid-low tier compared to the average one there. the show is decent as well, not very good or anything but it makes for a good adventure watch.

The show starts by introducing us to Muhyo and Roji who have a supernatural agency where you can go in and tell them about your problems. They will help you overcome whatever supernatural menace is wrecking your life. It’s sort of like the Mob Psycho setup there. This is how the group gets to meet new characters and friends as their agency keeps on completing quests. Roji is really the assistant here as he has no talent with the supernatural and tends to get in the way. This is balanced out by his being the much more emotional one who really wants to help others. Muhyo tends to always be in a bad mood or just be sleepy. He’s one of the most skilled executors in the world so he can exorcise spirits with ease but doesn’t always find the energy to do so.

That’s effectively the pre arc here although it ends almost immediately so the show can skip right to the plot type elements. Pre arc’s fun and all but usually the story is where things get good so I can see why the show would do that. This way we get to see the main villain and a preview of things to come. Naturally as season 1 this won’t wrap up all of the plot threads but a good amount of things happen here and the heroes get their first true fight.

So first lets talk about some of the pre arc adventures and the characters that are introduced as a result of that. One of these cases involves a kid named Kenji who doesn’t buy into the supernatural. In fact his group of friends are doing a test of courage at a “haunted” temple. You just have to run up the steps and tag the house so he shows up to basically rub it in Muhyo and Roji’s face. Unfortunately they know that the danger is very real and show up to save him in the nick of time.

Kenji never quite stops being rebellious but at least now he knows about the supernatural. His role in the show is really pretty small after his opening appearance but he’s around. There’s one fun scene where we see how he broke into Muhyo and Roji’s office. As far as the kids go I didn’t really mind him.

Then you have Nana’s introduction case. She is a photographer but lately weird things are appearing in her photos like a hand or even a face that she doesn’t know. The fact that even a normal human* can see this is pretty concerning so Muhyo and Roji are on the case. It’s one of the more emotional cases here as the spook isn’t quite evil although I would say he did a very poor job of expressing that. It ties into Nana’s backstory where her father began taking fake pictures for money. This led to his eventual destruction and then as a spirit he wanted to watch out for her but eh….he just wasn’t very good at this.

Now, Muhyo mentions that as a spirit you start to lose your mind so I guess the father just couldn’t think of anything very well. The fact that he didn’t turn violent too quickly helps a bit but I don’t give him much points for willpower because it was definitely the bare minimum. Nana is a solid heroine. Unfortunately she doesn’t have any powers here so there’s not much she can do to support the characters. She’s around and is a nice person but in this kind of series I do feel like that puts you at a bit of a disadvantage right from the jump if you can’t fight at all. She also has to put up with sketchy types like Yoichi so you feel bad for her from the start.

There’s also a pre arc story with a girl whose friend fell in the train tracks and seemingly wants revenge. The friend was not a very good person from the start though as she got super jealous right from the start. I think both characters could have handled it better, but I really don’t put the fault on the main girl for trying to have a normal life. She wasn’t rude to the friend or anything but the other girl took it way too hard. At least we got a happy ending of sorts there…not super happy honestly but Muhyo does his best to make sure the punishments aren’t too bad.

I should explain about the punishments and the overall system now. So as an executor Muhyo is able to invoke different passages from his book which summon creatures to come and take down the evil spirits. These summons take up a lot of energy and if you aren’t strong enough then you will be absorbed as well. Only some have the talent to be executors which is why you don’t see everyone with books. There aren’t a whole lot of them based on what we see in season 1 and even less that are quite powerful.

Muhyo’s summon depends also in part on where he wants to send the creature. If it’s a total monster with no redeeming value then he’ll send it to hell or one of the more deadly places. If it’s a misunderstood creature that went down the wrong path then he may try to get it into purgatory or somewhere where there could be a happy ending. Beyond that the series doesn’t go very in depth with it but it’s really all that you need to know.

The only downside to this is that you can’t have very interesting action scenes in this way. The battle ends when Muhyo finishes his summon which is pretty much a one hit KO technique. There’s not much else to it so usually the action scene might be the villain blasting at him while Roji or one of the other characters block. The only true action scene I’d say is in the final episodes. That’s why I’d call this more of a supernatural adventure or case of the week kind of show. Action can be a bit misleading even though this is Shonen Jump but then you get into the arguments of chase scenes being action scenes and so all of these are action scenes. A better way to put this might be that there aren’t many fight scenes but still action scenes. All in all, I just wouldn’t use the term action to describe this one too much.

I’d prefer if the characters could fight physically since I think that would make the whole thing more engaging but I suppose it’s just not like that sometimes. As for the first main plot, well we have a brief adventure where Enchu makes his first move. He unleashes a curse that spreads through touch so everyone has a face growing on them and it’s spreading fast. Muhyo will have to hurry if he wants to solve this before the sickness goes too far. If that happens that it’s game over since the rest of the exorcist/executors aren’t very powerful.

It’s a solid adventure although one that’s over as soon as it has begun. It’s a particularly rough ride for Roji who just can’t compete at this point and slows the team down. Additionally, it’s the introduction of Yoichi who is easily the worst character in the series. All he does is harass Nana most of the time and remind the heroes why they should be beating him up. Turns out he was a childhood friend of Muhyo although they don’t really hang out anymore and I don’t blame Muhyo.

Yoichi’s a character I definitely would have liked to have seen toned down a bit here. He’s just such a bad character and I don’t think we’ve seen a character this pervy in quite a while, at least on the heroes side. If you think about it, the days of characters like Keigo, Roshi, and Jiraiya are pretty much gone. The modern Shonens don’t really go that route which is definitely a good thing and I suppose in another way that shows this title’s age a bit. So yeah the sooner Yoichi’s written out the better.

The show is fairly good about not including too much fanservice. Of course you have all the Yoichi moments of him being sketchy but beyond that there’s only one hot springs episode. It’s the worst episode in the whole bunch though because it ends with the characters actually encouraging this random guy to be a perv to finish his novels. Really? Also, Nana is okay with this and being the one watched but it’s still completely awful for every character involved. Ugh, it would have been nice if at least someone had said this was a bad idea!

The final arc is the longest one as the gang heads over to a mansion where the monsters are getting out of control. The heroes were requested to help by the young Biko who found out that one of his tags was removed. Without the tag, the spirits will get free and cause mayhem so Muhyo’s the guy for the job. The issue is that this is a whole mansion filled with evil spirits and it’s hard to exorcise more than 3 in a day without being completely drained. Making matters worse is that one of the demons is Sophie the face ripper, a being that can assume someone’s appearance after ripping their face off. Anyone in this mansion is now a suspect so they have to keep their guards up.

This is definitely the most intense arc in the season and certainly the most violent one as well. They don’t call Sophie the face ripper for no reason after all as she really goes all in on this. The show doesn’t hold back and the sound effects will probably seal the deal for you on this being a very intense moment. On the whole I wouldn’t say the show is super violent or anything but mixed in with the designs for the demons and the moments are quite striking. The series has some unique designs like the faces that appear on everyone and even chomp other people as they get close.

Sophie herself makes for a very imposing villain. Her abilities are the real deal although the only reason she wasn’t quickly sealed away is because Muhyo was busy beating up on the weaker ones first which zapped his energy. Otherwise she probably wouldn’t have lasted but you do have to use strategy to help out and so Sophie did a good job. She also took out a fair number of fighters on her own so she deserves some credit there.

We get some new characters here as well like Biko. I wasn’t a fan of Biko though. She’s one of those characters who cries quite a bit and talks tough but can’t back it up when it counts. She really gets in the heroes’ way most of the time and can’t even do much in the way of blocking. All she has are the seals which don’t always work but can’t use barriers or spells. That’s really not going to get you far here and she was just annoying most of the time.

Rio is the other big character to show up and she’s better than Biko although I can’t say that I’m a big fan either. She gets an origin story where we see how the town was awful to her. It does always make it hard to root for the city to be saved when you get an origin story like this though. Absolutely nobody defended her and that was disappointing. You’d think that there’d be someone to report this too or someone who could help out unless the city was truly corrupt all the way through like the Hidden Leaf Village. If that is the case…then yeah this place is pretty awful.

Rio went through a whole lot without a doubt but of course that can never be an excuse for going down the wrong path. What hurts Rio for now is that she’s not all in. I always say if you want to be a good villain or a good hero then you have to be all in. You can’t be on the fence or regretting your actions the whole time. Same when you make a hard call and destroy a villain or save a city instead of another one. I don’t want a scene with the character yelling in regret later or crying the whole time. You just have to own it and move on which Rio has not done yet. She is strong in a fight though so at least she will be ready for the adventures to come.

As for the other villains, Teeki gets to appear a bit but he doesn’t have any real fights yet. As Enchu’s right hand man you have to assume that his role will only get bigger. I can see why he was upset at Enchu for not letting him finish off Muhyo though. This was the perfect chance to get the heroes out of their hair once and for all but of course it wasn’t quite the right time for Enchu.

Enchu is the main villain of the series and certainly makes some moves in this season. We see that he was rather unbalanced from the start as the pressure to be the Executor was too much for him. His mother was super sick as well so he really needed the position to get higher up, more money, and more connections. Unfortunately for him it just wasn’t to be and so he basically went crazy. He went crazy so fast though that it does seem like he would have turned evil at some point. For now he’s not a great villain or anything as I’ll need to see some better motivations than a quick revenge here. I would argue that Rio’s backstory was a lot sadder than his at this point in time.

Finally we have the main characters. First up is Roji who isn’t very talented but tries his best. He’s a very earnest character who means well so he’s not bad. You wish he could improve a little quicker though as he spends most of the season getting in the way the whole time. He finally learns how to make some basic barriers in the climax though so that should follow him through into season 2. As a comic relief character Roji also works well. From the duo I much prefer Muhyo but Roji holds his own as the partner.

Finally there’s Muhyo and while his attacks may not have a lot of variety, they get the job done so it’s hard to argue with the results. When you need a demon/spirit taken down then you can always count on Muhyo to accomplish this. He may be grouchy a lot but that only serves to make the character more entertaining. His weakness of losing stamina so quickly is a big one but since it’s built into the universe it isn’t like that’s a weakness exclusive to him either. The duo have a good working relationship going with solid banter so that’s good.

In short, Muhyo & Roji’s a fun adventure. It doesn’t really feel like your average Shonen Jump adventure either since there’s less big fights and it’s more focused on the supernatural elements but that does help it stand out. The character cast isn’t great and like the manga there aren’t any super strong aspects of the series that would have me put it at the next level but it does enough to stay in the green.

The animation is good. It’s nothing particularly noteworthy but the animation is smooth and there’s a lot of good movement here. It’s the definition of average for me. You can tell that it’s a modern show and things get a little flashy during the climax so it serves its purpose. The designs look intense in motion and I like the effects for the summons (Although the recycled animation each time is a bit much) and barriers as well. The soundtrack didn’t have any real memorable themes though. The opening wasn’t great either but it’s not bad.

Overall, I guess that described a lot of the show. It’s certainly not bad but everything is just good enough to keep it that way without going further. We’ll see if season 2 is able to improve on this. Still, if you like the supernatural and dealing with spirits/demons then this is a show you could have some fun with. At the end of the day as long as you can have a fun time watching the show then it’s worth checking out. Especially since it’s only 1 cour for the season so it’s not like it’ll take you all that long to check out.

Overall 6/10

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen: Battle of Kimluck Review

Posted on February 14, 2022 by dreager1

It’s time to take a look at Orphen season 2, not to be mixed up with the season 2 to the original show. This one delves into the Kimluck battles and I’m always still curious at how the novels played things out. The events in this show compared to the first one are just so massively different on every level that it’s pretty interesting. I am glad that Azalie gets more to do in this version though as she is easily one of the standout characters. It’s a fun show but considerably weaker than the first one mainly due to some slow pacing with new characters that you’ll find it hard to care about and Orphen’s main plot being a little hard to buy into.

So the gang are finally arriving at Kimluck. This is a place that is incredibly dangerous for sorcerers aside from those who are already within the kingdom but Orphen has to go there anyway. Azalie was interested in the place and that’s the best lead that he’s got. Plus, he’s Orphen, what can these guys do to him? Well, he’s about to walk into a situation that’s much bigger than he was expecting as there are some mysteries involving the origins of the dragons, the origins of the sorcerers, and even the legendary sword from season 1. It turns out that pretty much everything has roots within Kimluck and Orphen won’t be able to use his true powers anymore after being traumatized during a fight with one of the villains. Can he escape these tunnels alive?

The heroes are stuck in the tunnels for quite a bit after being betrayed by one of the locals. Of course Orphen did say they couldn’t trust anyone here but the gang ends up following their lead anyway so the warning pretty much didn’t matter. At the end of the day I suppose if they want to find the secrets of this place it’s not like they have a whole lot of say in the matter anyway. This leads into the weakest aspect of the film though.

See, the characters are stuck in this underground passageway where the water could come flooding in at any point. This means they can’t really blast their way out or it could cause a cave in. Usually Orphen could at least try some kind of spell but here’s the kicker. So Orphen murdered this one guy who was in his way because he used too much power accidentally. Orphen blames himself because even in the life or death situation he thinks he should have been able to hold back and just knock the guy out.

I have a lot of issues with this, one of which being that this guy was trying to murder Orphen and had a bunch of steroids so he was moving very fast. Orphen was nearly the one who died there. Even beyond that, Orphen doesn’t strike me as someone who would be traumatized so easily like that. In this world magic is based on your emotions so while he is in a fragile state like this there isn’t a whole lot that he can do. I find it hard to buy into personally. It’s also to such an exaggerated level where he is down in the dumps for almost the whole season from that point.

It’s a shame because Orphen’s usually a lot of fun for being such a confident main character. He’ll talk back to anyone and fight with the best of them. We don’t get to see that version of Orphen for very long here. So I can safely say that the murder guilt plot was just bad. It doesn’t help to enhance the story in any way and instead only serves to hold it back. If you had to do this kind of plot then I think it needed to be a bystander. For example, Orphen didn’t hold back enough and his attack murdered an onlooker or something. That would make a whole lot more sense for why this incident would break Orphen.

Okay so that plot wasn’t great but the show does have a fantastic climax. Azalie’s always a lot of fun like I mentioned before because she’s the tough rival for Orphen. Their relationship is a bit different than the average rival one though as she was also a mentor to him. He doesn’t even know what her true goals are here but she tends to find herself in dangerous spots most of the time. While he did beat her that one time, she is always portrayed as being far more skilled than he is.

This also seems to be the case in the climax as we finally get to see them team up against Quo. Now granted, Orphen is nerfed for the whole guilt thing from before but Azalie is definitely doing the heavy lifting here. The magic fight is a lot of fun because we don’t always get to see these large scale battles in Orphen. The series typically ends up being more about adventure and world building which are both good as well of course but sometimes you just want that big fight to end things off with and the show manages to deliver on that.

The final fight has some super forms and a lot of strategy as well. Quo’s battle style is rather fun as he has a solid defense and offense but isn’t really able to use them at the same time. In that respect it’ll remind you of a video game as the characters have to try and hit him with perfect timing before he resets. There’s also a very memorable part near the end where he pulls out a gun. It’s always very impressive when the villain just pulls out a gun in any kind of show where there are super powers because you just wonder how useful it can possibly be. Well, it comes in clutch here that’s for sure.

In general I thought Quo was a rather fun villain. At first he is more of a minion who just takes orders so he didn’t stand out but he finally realizes that the whole thing is nonsense and makes a move later on. With his level of abilities it makes sense not to just meekly follow orders and the leader did seem rather crazy with how he would murder off his subordinates for no real reason. Quo at least tried to have an honor code and thought he was doing the right thing. Throw in his super forms and he may be the most memorable Orphen villain aside from the clone doll in season 1 or Azalie if she still counts.

Salua is a returning character from season 1 but he definitely does not look very good here. So he was taken down off screen by the Kimluck church and the best you can say for him is that he never talked no matter how much they interrogated him. I’ll give him credit for that but that’s about it. Considering that he was a death instructor who gave Orphen a tough fight in season 1, he’s treated like fodder in this season. He gets wrecked in every fight and just can’t seem to hold his own against everyone. He constantly looks to Orphen for help which tells me that he doesn’t have a ton of confidence in his own abilities either. It’s like without his special sword he’s not as tough as he once was.

In this verse the power levels don’t go too high yet so I get that he has limits but he does not look impressive in the slightest. Volcan and Dortin don’t get a big role in this season but I was cool with that. They’re the comic relief characters who will have a fun scene once in a while but usually don’t really do anything to enhance the scene. They just slow it down and you wait for them to go away. They’re traveling with Azalie for most of the season which is a change of pace but even then they don’t do anything.

Cleao’s role isn’t huge as the main heroine either but she still manages to be helpful quite a few times. It really helps that she has Leki (I always think she’s calling him “Lucky” though) around since that little dragon type creature can take almost anyone out. It’s not always a get out of jail free card but it does work quite a bit. Cleao also isn’t opposed to getting into the field and trying to swing at the enemy either. She has a lot more energy than you would expect and so she’s a lot of fun.

Definitely a big improvement over Majic who I’m still not sold on. He at least tries to fight in Orphen’s place at times here while Orphen is unable to deal any damage. That said, he’s still ineffective at almost all points so it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of improvement there. For every step forward he takes, he seems to fall backwards almost immediately. I look forward to the days when he becomes someone that can be counted on.

Childman’s dead by the time season 2 pops around but he still gets a whole lot of hype. For example he is the only sorcerer to ever break into Kimluck and then escape with his life. We also get a flashback where he is the chosen one able to meet the god who broke away from the other gods to deliver the power of the dragons. The guy really got around so in a way it’s too bad that he couldn’t have fought more in the present before being taken down. I’d have liked to have seen more of his skills.

For example, could Orphen really beat him in a fair fight? It seems like the answer to that may be a no. At least Orphen still has the cool title of being the Razor’s Edge. It’s brought up constantly and I do like it as a title. It’s just got some gravity behind it and makes him really sound like a tough customer. I am still a big fan of Orphen so when he’s not down in the dumps he is usually coming up with some good lines or solid fight scenes.

Madchen is one of the main new characters here. She fights for the resistance and opposes the will of Kimluck. Naturally this means that her whole squad is murdered in the opening episode and she spends the rest of the show getting styled on by all of the villains. In particular the worst appearance for her is when she tries to assassinate Carlotta who is asleep in bed but fails. Of course we learn that Carlotta was awake and would have easily bested Carlotta but it doesn’t help Madchen’s hype. Really the issue for Madchen is that she’s a normal human with a sword who has no magical enhancements. That is really not going to take you far in this kind of show. At least she is on the right side so maybe one day she will get a power up.

Carlotta’s an interesting villain but it’s hard to say exactly what she is thinking. She enjoys being a villain for sure but is quick to walk out on the main villain when the tides turn. She’s just looking after herself but you have to assume she may lose her wealth if she isn’t careful about being so openly rebellious. I’d like to see more of her because there is some potential here but I get the feeling she won’t be returning as the heroes leave Kimluck for good.

Then we have the Pope who is at the head of this and there’s an interesting twist about him. He’s not just some old guy in the chair but can actually fight. The doll in that place may or may not even be the real guy although I like the idea that it is. It’s hard to get a read on him. At first glance he seems like some insane villain who isn’t planning for the long game but maybe there’s more to him. He’s still more interesting than Name who is the villain that only exists to traumatize Orphen.

Name starts rambling on about the Church of Kimluck and trying to be of use to the place. The guy is completely brainwashed by the church to the point where he fills himself with steroids so that he’ll die but is fine with it. He even starts questioning Orphen’s resolve and messing with his mind. I would have liked if Orphen had just laughed all of this off but unfortunately he takes it pretty hard the whole time. The guy is surprisingly skilled so he does last quite a bit. I’ll at least acknowledge that he is powerful considering that the guy’s only human. Those drugs really did the trick.

There’s not much more to say about Azalie as I already explained why she’s so much fun. She has Orphen’s confidence but with an even higher level of skill. She’s always mysterious about her intentions but at the end of the day she still does help Orphen out when he’s in trouble. Azalie’s like an anti-hero in that sense as she is quietly helping Orphen out at every turn. I wouldn’t be surprised if she is leading him somewhere or has some kind of grand plan in the end but we would probably need more seasons for that and I’m not sure what the odds would be on this getting a season 3.

As for the plot with the gods, it is interesting in concept but right now it’s hard to care too much. The series tries a lot of worldbuilding throughout but I’d say it’s just not all really connecting quite yet. We have dragons, gods, humans, sorcerers, and they all mix together with the origins. It seems like it’s possible that the other gods may intervene at some point but what would that really do with the plot? Who knows so we’ll just have to wait. It was impressive that the girl behind the door survived being choked by a god for many years but since they were partially in the other dimension and partially in the real world, I guess this was due to being between realms. I have to say that being choked for years sounds like a pretty awful experience though.

So if they want the gods and dragons (Or they may even be the same thing with how regal the dragons here are. It’s like they’re an elevated life form) to be relevant then I really need season 3 to make this more of a focus. With Sorcerers effectively being humans who have some of the dragon blood within them, I wonder if that means we could get some super forms in the future. I’d definitely be down with that. For the animation, the show looks pretty solid as you’d expect. I liked how vibrant everything was in season 1 and that continues here. I would say it looks just as good and while most of the show is pretty low key so the animators don’t get to show off, the climax is able to go all out.

As for the soundtrack, there aren’t any real new themes that I can remember but it was decent. None of the tracks really stand out in particular. The ending is decent enough and the opening’s good. I wonder if it’s some kind of remix because the opening sounds like one I’ve heard many years ago but it could just be that it’s the same band or something. The visuals in the opening are a lot of fun though and while it may make you think that the show is more action packed than it is, it certainly serves its purpose of getting you hyped to see what’s coming up next.

While the middle of the show may not be the strongest, ultimately Orphen is able to continue to be solid because it did have a strong start and ending. The intro where Orphen shows up to save Madchen and fight off the dolls was a good way to start things off and I already talked about the climax. The show also makes for a pretty easy watch because it’s an upbeat fantasy adventure. I’d also say there is a good amount of replay value for the title as a whole because the writing and banter are good. So while this didn’t match season 1, I would be pretty hyped for a season 3 if we ever get that.

Overall, Battle of Kimluck doesn’t ultimately end up matching up to season 1. Mainly I’d say this is due to the Orphen guilt plot and the underground episodes just not being very exciting. I want to say that way more happened in season 1 than 2 and maybe that’s partially because it was pre arc but the pacing was always on point. Season 2 can be more of a slow boil leading up to the final fight. It’s still a good show though. The writing is on point and I do like the character cast as a whole. The graphics are good and the music is solid enough so that has all of the makings of a good show. It doesn’t make any big mistakes either and will leave you hyped for season 3 to see what Azalie is going to do next and what all of this lore is leading up to. If you want a good fantasy watch then this is up your alley.

Overall 7/10

The World Ends With You: The Animation Review

Posted on February 4, 2022 by dreager1

I remember it feeling random that The World Ends With You was getting an anime adaption but I’m definitely all for it. It’s always fun to see a game get the TV show treatment and maybe soon they’ll do the same for Kingdom Hearts. It’s got an interesting animation style which is supposed to really emulate the video game and I’d say it does a good job of that. It certainly doesn’t look as good as a traditional show due to this but works well enough. It adapts the game well and maybe if we’re lucky a season 2 will come out some day to adapt the sequel game.

The show starts off with Neku waking up in Shibuya with no memory of how he got here. What’s even worse is the fact that nobody can see him. It turns out that he must have died at some point and is now forced to participate in a Reaper Game. Effectively this is a 7 day survival competition where he has to complete a mission each day or face erasure. The situation continues to grow more challenging for Shiki when he finds out that he needs a partner in order to fully use the super powers that are given as part of the game. Neku’s not exactly a people person and his partner is the very happy go lucky Shiki. Can the two heroes make pull this off or are they doomed?

The ole survival competition is always a good way to get some really quick tension. After all if you die while you’re already dead then that probably means you’re gone for good. You’ve also got the mystery of how Neku died since he can’t seem to remember that for some reason. The show is only 12 episodes long so things tend to move at a very quick pace. You may wonder how the 7 days will last for 12 episodes but the show does well with the pacing throughout. As someone who played the game I’d say this is a very faithful adaption that really hits the right notes. There is only a single moment where I feel like the anime had less impact than the game and I’ll get into that later on.

The soundtrack here is a lot of fun with the classic themes from the game showing up. While it’s always good to have new music to spice things up, I’m never opposed to grabbing some tunes from the source material since it’s a good nostalgia boost. The game’s main theme certainly works well as the opening even if that wasn’t the original intent. As for the animation, I would say it’s below average. The colors are striking but when they all start moving then you can see the flaws here. The actual combat isn’t very fast or smooth most of the time. It all looks like video game cutscenes for the most part.

I do like how the combination attacks look though. You can always feel a lot of power behind them. Also, as I mentioned the colors are striking so this works really well for special abilities. You can pause the show at any point and it’ll look good. That’s the strength of this style so if anyone shows you a screenshot at any point it should look good. The show doesn’t bother getting into the mechanics of the abilities here so sometimes you’ll see Neku and friends randomly using new attacks but I think even without the game you can understand what’s going on here. After all they do show the pins briefly here and there with different symbols so you understand that the power comes from them.

A more traditional style certainly could have done wonders for the series and propped it up to the next level but as they say, the animation could have been much worse. The production values probably keep this from being higher than it is but at its core the show is still fundamentally solid on writing and story so it’s not like this score will take a big hit. It’s still a pretty fun show that I would recommend to anyone looking for a quality action/adventure story. Even if you haven’t played the game you should be able to get on board with Neku and the others.

As a main character Neku starts off as a bit of a jerk and gradually gets used to hanging around with people. It’s a classic character arc that is handled well and you should be able to have a lot of fun with him. I tend to enjoy characters who are rather blunt like this and he is trying to survive after all. In this tournament, you lose that which you hold most precious to your heart which exposes his feelings for one of the characters later on. It shows how he’s changed but is also a pretty awkward way for others to start finding out about it. Ultimately the Neku we see at the end of the show is far different from the one who entered it.

Then we have the heroine Shiki who is certainly Neku’s polar opposite at first. She tries her best to see the silver linings in being trapped within a death game but is a bit timid despite her cheerful disposition so this isn’t always easy. She is good in the support role throughout the rounds and is a quality character. With her psychic cat she can certainly deal damage to the villains as well.

Next up is Beat but I didn’t care for him for big chunks of the story. See, I like his character type as he is the classic tough guy. Beat is always willing to pick a fight but deep down he’s a good guy. My issue is that he isn’t very loyal and there’s a part of the story where he doesn’t take some events very well at all and actively tries to put others in harm’s way. Once Beat broke down there really wasn’t a way for him to get back up. While you do get that he’s in a better place now, that was a really rocky moment there.

Rhyme doesn’t get to appear nearly as much but is a nice enough character. There just isn’t a whole lot of time to have any real development there. You could say the same for the other contestants. Technically there are a ton of players in this game after all and we never really get to see most of them as they end up dying off screen. The show is quite light hearted for the most part and doesn’t dwell on them but if you think about it, things get awfully dicey for most of the characters in this world.

Joshua is my favorite player in the game and 2nd favorite character in the show as a whole. He has a lot of confidence and is easily the smartest member. While the show has to cut down on a lot of the dialogues to save time, I always enjoyed his back and forth conversations with Minamiimoto. Joshua was the only guy who could ever keep up with the guy’s number phrases and insults. Joshua is also quite powerful and plays a big role in the mysteries of Shibuya. Whenever he appears, Joshua tends to steal the show.

Hanekoma is a mysterious cafe owner who seems to know a whole lot about the rules of the game and what’s going on. You can always count on him to give the heroes a pep talk while wondering what else he is doing. Sometimes you learn a lot by just staying back and observing which could be what he is doing. He’s decent enough but for a character like this I always question why they don’t do more. In a sense Hanekoma also loses points for not getting in on the action.

Uzuki and Kariya are both reapers within the game. Their job is to mess with the players and sometimes destroy them via the Noise. (Monsters) They aren’t allowed to attack players directly but that happens a lot anyway. I’m not a big fan of either one and they are completely overshadowed by the main villains. They’re not as ineffective as Team Rocket or anything but you never really feel like they are a threat. You get the feeling that the heroes could take them out if they got serious.

Additionally, both of them fall for traps very easily. Kariya is supposed to be the smart one and even he doesn’t do very well here. They talk a really good game but ultimately don’t really do much to enhance the story here. Now if you want a great villain, look no further than Minamiimoto. This guy’s just great whenever he shows up. He’s got extreme ambitions and has the power to back them up. I like his boundless confidence and his gimmick about always using numerical terms is a lot of fun. How can you not like a character like this right? His role is big here and you only wish he could have lasted longer.

Then you have Konishi who is another one of the big villain members here. She is also quite ambitious but tends to be quieter than Minamiimoto. She can also fight well when it’s time to do so and is also a good villain. She contrasts with Minamiimoto’s style well and ends up being memorable. In comparison, the final villain Kitaniji isn’t as memorable. You get the feeling that he is very powerful and all but it took a while for him to do anything. He does get a bit of a backstory by the end though which gives him more character.

The World Ends With You is a title that has a lot of twists and turns so I think it’s fair to call this part mystery. I’ve made sure to avoid those elements so you can have fun discovering them for yourself. They all have satisfying conclusions to them which help to enhance the show. Now I did mention that there’s one scene that the show just didn’t adapt very well in my opinion. Well, it’s a scene near the climax so I can’t give too much context away but Neku’s in a pinch against a very difficult opponent. Then just as things are getting hopeless, a glimmer of hope appears and the music jumps up as the whole situation is turned upside down. This was an amazing moment in the game and the music came at the right moment.

In the show the moment isn’t really treated like a big deal though. You don’t have the music climaxing at the right time, the big inner monologue before it and so it doesn’t feel nearly as powerful. The fast pacing may have worked against the show there as it had to move quickly. That was the only point where I felt the adaption wasn’t on point though, the rest of it hit all the right notes and got things moving. The pacing is quite fast and it needs to be to adapt a whole RPG into a quick 1 season show. The game had a ton of gameplay and missions that would slow things down though so the show was able to easily navigate around that and kept in what I would consider to be all of the important moments.

The review feels a bit short but it’s because there isn’t a ton to talk about here. The plot is very straight forward and while there are a lot of twists, I’m not really going into those here. Depending on the title I sometimes jump in if the twist didn’t make sense or I had something to say about it, but it all works really naturally here. By the time the show ends you don’t have any lingering questions of anything like that. So as a result when you finish the show there aren’t any big plot threads that you’re thinking about either. It’s a very open and shut case. You had your fun watching it and then you go on. For that reason maybe it should have had a stinger for the sequel but I’m not sure if that would have made a lot of sense anyway. Of course I’m always up for a little cliffhanger so I’d be game.

Overall, The World Ends With You is a pretty solid show. It’s a good all around title that has your fight scenes, adventure, and mystery angles all thrown in. The animation style may not always work for the fight scenes but it is a very distinct and colorful style that is easy to look at so that’s still important. I wouldn’t say the show ever made any big mistakes either. So perhaps it isn’t the next all star but it’s just an easy anime to recommend and have a good time with. I’d say the replay value is good here too. It’d be great if they could adapt the sequel into a show someday too. There’s a whole lot you could do with that and of course it would just be a lot of fun to see the characters back in action. I assume it’s a longshot but you can always hope.

Overall 7/10

Black Rock Shooter Review

Posted on January 23, 2022 by dreager1

Black Rock Shooter is one of those shows that I knew nothing about except the design of the main fighter. One of the oldest music themes in my favorites list is “Battle of BRS” which may be from this show but I was listening for it during the show and didn’t notice it so maybe it’s from the OVA or something else. Either way it’s cool to be entering into this adventure now and it’s definitely a great show. It’s a fun divide between the human world and the other place where fights rage on forever. It’s short but makes the most of the length.

The show starts off by introducing us to Mato who has had a very fun life up to now. She really enjoys reading a book about the bird who saw a million colors and has lives her life modeled after that. Mato enjoys everything and sees life as being something amazing. When she sees her classmate Yomi is really by herself and not having a good time, Mato tries being her friend. This will be tough though as Yomi is shackled by her sick friend Kagari. Mato will have to learn what it means to go through both emotional and physical pain on this journey of hers but she doesn’t want to stop trying to get Yomi to a better place.

The plot changes over the course of the 8 episodes but a large chunk of this is really about Mato learning that there’s more to life than just pure joy even if it would be cool if that was the case. So by trying to help Yomi she ends up throwing her own life off of the clear path it was on. That’s why throughout the show Mato is just great. She doesn’t get down easy and she’s always going out of her way to help out the other characters. She helps out quite a few characters before this is over.

Now I should talk about the other world. It’s a very interesting concept and one that the show dives into quite a bit by the end. So in this show, every character has an inner self which is quite literal. This self is born to fight on your behalf in the other world. Mato’s counterpart is Black Rock Shooter. So BRS’s objective is to protect Mato’s soul and get rid of anyone who endangers it. It is quite literally a life built for nonstop fighting. There is never an end to the battles and there are always more fighters to battle.

As a result it can be a depressing existence for these beings. Fortunately they are built to have no emotions by default but as we see in the show, it is possible to develop them. So all these years BRS has been fighting off enemies and protecting Mato. I’d say she has done an excellent job of it considering that Mato’s had a near perfect life. It’s important to note that the humans don’t know about their inner selves or at least most don’t. Mato has dreams about BRS on occasion but that’s really the extent of it.

When your inner self is destroyed, you lose all memory of whatever had been causing you pain. So, lets say someone bullied you at school and stole your lunch. Your inner self absorbs that pain and if the despair is too much then it will cause your real self to also be empty inside. If someone destroys your inner self containing the despair, your real self will completely forget it. It’ll be like that deed never happened to you so you now have peace but it’s a false peace since you’ve lost your memory. So one of the trials here is deciding if what BRS is doing is right. After all, aside from protecting Mato she is going around and destroying all of the negative inner selves.

This is helping these other people by conquering their despair. It takes Yomi and Kagari from each being near suicidal to being able to be happy again. So it does seem like a really positive thing but it completely erases all of their bad memories which does have a big impact. There’s a whole debate to be there for sure. My short answer though is that BRS is doing good. She is protecting Mato and if she didn’t destroy those inner selves then they would have possibly destroyed the human hosts as well. It’s hard to say for sure but it definitely seemed to be going that way.

BRS seems like one of the only positive inner selves though. So I wonder if you have to have despair in order to generate one of these or if we just don’t see the positive ones. I am going to assume it’s the latter for now and BRS is intentionally only going after the evil ones. If so, it speaks even better of BRS even if by the end some characters are convinced that she may destroy the entire world. BRS is very determined and gets the job done, that’s definitely very impressive. She is easily my favorite character as well. She takes some really heavy blows and always manages to get back up. Additionally, just imagine what it’s like to be locked into a never ending conflict for years and years at a time. You have to have strong mental fortitude to keep up with that and we see that BRS really is a strong soul.

That’s about all I need to say on the Other World so you get the gist of it. We see several other inner selves of course as each main girl has one and they all try their best to fight off BRS. Aside from Strength none of the others get any real character but the designs are all fun. Of course they do give us a ton of great action scenes as well. It’s all very styalized and is using a noticeably different animation style than in the human world. It helps to make the fights stand out and I definitely liked it quite a lot.

The fights are great throughout and you really feel the blows. If handled wrong this could have been excessively violent but it’s all styalized so it never actually feels that way. The characters are almost like machines fighting and I’d say this is intentional to show how they have been containing the despair for so long and nothing phases them. BRS will be getting pummeled over and over only to jump up and land a powerful combo. The other world scenes are definitely the best part of the show.

Not to say the human stuff is bad, I’ll get onto that shortly. The human stuff is really good too but it’s nice to have a literal battlefield where we see how the emotions are affecting these fighters. It also adds the action genre to the show which is never a bad thing. The fights remind me of Madoka a bit with how everyone has an absolutely massive arsenal where they can spam their attacks at will. These fighters never run out of attacks to use and will fight until one of them is completely destroyed.

So now lets get to the human part which is almost like a different show. Maybe that’s part of what makes the show so effective, it’s like two shows for the price of one as we switch into worlds. For an emotional story like this where Mato is helping everyone out, I’d say a crucial part of whether it succeeds or not depends on how dark each person’s story is. It’s very easy for a show to write everyone going through absolutely horrible tragedies where the scars will be with them forever. Fortunately the show has a lot of restraint and while all of the characters are in bad situations, it never crosses that line.

The darkest situation is the first friend for sure which is Yomi. So here’s the situation. When they were kids, Yomi was best friends with Kagari. Unfortunately Kagari got injured and blames Yomi for this. Yomi must now play with her and her alone at all times. If she tries to play with anyone else Yomi will guilt trip her further. Unfortunately Yomi’s mother is also in on this and doesn’t notice how Kagari completely terrorizes her the whole time. Yomi is now too scared to do much of anything and even allows Kagari to physically injure her. This is where Mato steps in to save the day.

This is the kind of situation though where I have to blame Yomi quite a lot though. I get why she feels guilt here but at the end of the day the injury was actually more on Kagari when you think about it. Additionally, guilt can only go too far. Yomi has already given Kagari many years but when it comes to letting your friend stab you and scare everyone away that’s just going way too far. I wanted to see Yomi stick up for herself a bit here. It’s a character arc I’ve seen before definitely and each time I think it just goes way too far.

Yomi ended up being my least favorite character in the series as she just keeps sinking even after the arc. You’d think that the experience of having a possessive, abusive friend would help Yomi learn what not to do in friendship. Instead she becomes unreasonably jealous of Mato’s other friend Kotari. It would have been so easy for the 3 of them to be friends. Mato and Kotari were both all for it but Yomi of course had to make sure this couldn’t happen. It takes forever for Yomi to finally turn into a decent character. In a sequel I’m sure she would look better but in this show she was really annoying with how this all ended up. I still think there was no reason for her to go off the deep end. (Not gonna blame the inner self for any of this)

Kagari was of course an awful bully in the first half but fortunately after BRS saved the day she was able to become a good character. I mean she still has some moments that seem off like when she yells Yomi not to be too clingy but I guess she was trying to be nice about how she framed it and just didn’t know how to do it. It’s hard to just forget about the first half so I wouldn’t say Kagari is a good character. She is on a good track to be a better person going forward though.

Another character who needed help was Arata. Her situation isn’t nearly as bad though. Basically she likes a guy but he’s a wimp who lets his friends make fun of her for that and does nothing to stop them. Now that Arata had her heart trampled on like this she has retreated within herself. She has always internalized all of her issues and believes that anything bad that happens is her own fault. It’s a rationale she uses to make sure that she never gets sad but of course this is catching up to her. It doesn’t help that Saya is always making some little comments about this but I’ll talk more about her shortly. I liked Arata quite a lot though.

Internalizing like that isn’t healthy but it is certainly better than blowing up at the other characters and causing a scene. Arata never does that and does ultimately stand by her ideals of rising or falling on her own merits. You’re rooting for her to have a happy ending by the end of all this. Her inner self is probably the weakest one as she doesn’t really fight but it makes sense. Her inner self has no despair to absorb since Arata keeps it to herself and the inner self probably doesn’t even know what to do at this point.

Now lets talk about Saya. So for most of the series Saya was my favorite villain. She’s the counselor at the school but her actual role is the opposite. She will call in a student who is having a bad time and will intentionally give them bad advice. For example Yomi arrives in a very bad mental state and Saya tells her that nobody needs her. Arata mentions how things went badly for her and Saya basically says that’s a good thing. Mato goes in for help and Saya literally starts choking her before saying that she lost control for a sec.

It’s how not subtle Saya is that really sells the character for me. It’s also just surreal because I’ve never seen a character like this. Everyone is caught up in their feels so nobody ever complains about her to the administration so Saya’s really in the clear. The comments are always obvious but when the character questions this Saya will say that she misspoke or just do the classic “Huh?”. It’s very twisted of course since this is a villain who only targets you when you’re already down and in a delicate headspace. It’s why this makes her so unique as a villain though. She doesn’t do anything over the top, she’s not using swear words, beating people up, or doing anything crazy. She’s just using mild comments but ones that are specifically tailored to each character to maximize how hard they will take the comment. Now there are some twists about this that make you think about her character some more. It’s an interesting twist but whether it truly helps her or not can be debatable.

Finally we have Mato’s best friend Kotari and from the start you probably figured that something would happen to her eventually. She’s always happy and cheering Mato on so clearly something is wrong here right? Well, she gets quite a lot of development such as a burning house and growing up in an awful household. It’s certainly not a good situation for her and like Arata she seems to internalize this. At least..that seems to be the case at first. So the next 5 paragraphs are pretty big spoilers so avoid them if you haven’t seen the show yet. This will also tie into Saya as I untangle this a bit. Get ready to skip nowwwwwwwww.

Begin Spoilers. So Kotari actually switched places with her inner self “Strength”. How is this possible? Anything is possible in these things if you believe hard enough. So now Kotari is the one who receives all of the despair and it’s sort of driven her crazy. She has a whole speech about this at the end where she’s screaming about how it hurts but how she’s also still here and she won’t let the pain beat her. The speech itself could be rather inspirational if she wasn’t so crazy by this point trying to murder BRS. The message is good how Kotari has been through a lot but won’t let the pain define her. At the same time, Kotari has completely abandoned the human world so is she really dealing with the pain or avoiding it? She’s clearly been through a lot and was a really good character.

Then of course the character we thought was Kotari for most of the series was actually Strength. As a result I can safely say that Strength is a great character as well. She takes a lot of risks to help Mato throughout the series and was really a nice person to everyone. It seems like she takes her life very seriously since she knows first hand how any sadness would affect the real Kotari in her world. So the setup they have is pretty good and it’s a credit to both characters. Ultimately this can’t last though and the real Kotari will need to go back and hang out with everyone. Hopefully she still has all the memories of Strength and knows what is going on or school’s gonna feel crazy.

Now lets talk about Saya’s plan. It turns out that there was a method to her madness. So she was intentionally breaking each student down to expose their true selves so BRS could destroy them. This would grant the students their inner peace. Then once BRS had absorbed all of that negativity, Saya would destroy her so then Mato would be free and everyone would be free of despair. It’s one of those plans that doesn’t sound crazy at first glance. If Saya succeeds then everyone will be happy so isn’t that good?

Well, it would be except how can she beat BRS? We see how powerful BRS is in every fight and she seems to get stronger after each adventure. Saya’s inner self is powerful as well but definitely not on the same level. Maybe the fact that Saya seems to pretty much be able to control her inner self would make her stronger but I still see no way to close the gap. Saya is also tempted to murder Mato at one point which would have really not solved anything and would have made everything worse. I don’t think BRS ever needed to die though as she only happened to go crazy because of the failed fusion with Mato. Otherwise I think she would have stopped once the threats were gone. So Saya’s plan was very convoluted and was no good.

Here’s another huge flaw in the plan. What if she broke down Yomi and the others too well and they ended up doing something they’d regret? If they died then her plan would have been completely off the rails since she would have indirectly murdered the people she was trying to help. That’s why I think they should have played it straight and kept Saya as a villain. Make her the final boss and that would have been more satisfying. This plan just doesn’t make much sense to me even if it was well intentioned. Reminds me of Athena’s plans in that sense. Plus Saya was just so much fun as a villain. Ah well.

End spoilers. As mentioned, Mato is a great main character so that wraps up what I would consider to be a very impressive lineup here. You really won’t have any issues with Mato because she does her best to protect everyone at all times. She is willing to put her physical and emotional selves in jeopardy to help out as well. Mato really doesn’t hesitate to put herself in harm’s way and while it ends up hurting her, she’s okay if she has helped someone. You can’t ask for much more out of a hero.

The animation for the human world is good too. It may not stand out as much as the inner world but of course that’s because we don’t have big action scenes in the real world. Either way it works well as the animations and designs are on point. The soundtrack is also good. I wouldn’t say there are any really standout themes but the battle theme is good. The opening and ending are okay but I wouldn’t say they are too memorable. I don’t think you’ll be humming these tunes after the show ends or anything like that.

Black Rock Shooter works in large part because of the writing. Of course the fights are good as well but this is really a show that could have gone sideways. Writing an emotional show will always be tougher than a standard action one because you have to be sad without being too tragic. It’s a tight line that you have to walk and this show did a great job with it. It’s why it ended up surpassing expectations for me and is definitely a top notch show that I would recommend checking out. At only 8 episodes you’ll be done with this one in a flash. The story breezes by and the pacing is always quick so you can’t go wrong here.

Overall, Black Rock Shooter is a great show that is emotional by day and action packed by night. The contrast between both worlds is really handled excellently. I would be cool with a whole show for either world but by merging it like this you really get a complete adventure. From the two though, a full show for BRS in her world would be a lot of fun. Since nobody there talks though I can see why this would have to be more of a sub plot though. I mean, not that they can’t talk but as emotionless fighters they don’t tend to talk much. Only BRS and Strength really show any kind of emotion here. Well, it’s nice to know the story behind the fun battle song “Battle of BRS” now. I’d recommend looking up that tune if you haven’t yet and of course you should check this show out if you’re up for a solid adventure.

Overall 8/10

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 Review

Posted on January 23, 2022 by dreager1

Slime season 2 feels like the biggest glow up I’ve seen between seasons since Mob Psycho. Now it may not seem nearly as drastic just looking at the score but I would say it can take a whole lot of effort to go up from being a 7 which is pretty good to being an 8 which is truly great. Additionally I was tempted to push this all the way up to a 9 but I told myself I needed to calm down. The entire last chunk of the season was incredible but I had to carefully factor in what I would consider to be a very rough start. Ultimately the series was able to pull itself up rather well and I’m definitely looking forward to season 3 more than I would have been before.

I would say there are really 2 main arcs here. The second arc is really the highlight but the first one is solid too. It’s just the opening episodes before that which get tricky. So life is good and Rimuru is still building up his alliance in Tempest. At this point he already has a Demon Lord on his side as well as the incredibly powerful Vendora and hundreds of powerful warriors. Perhaps he will be the one to achieve world peace. In the meantime though he has to meet with powerful politicians and share drinks and such.

So this arc was pretty weak….but I consider this to be pre arc. For around 3-4 episodes it just feels like not much is happening. Rimuru is socializing I suppose but it feels like an excuse for just lots of fanservice and not much else. It was a weaker start than season 1 so I was a bit nervous here. I mean the production values are still great and all but where was the fun story? I would even say there wasn’t a ton of world building here. Fortunately that changes when the outside kingdoms decide to attack Tempest which is what really sets off Arc 1 for real. The Kingdom of Falmuth hatches a plan along with the holy Church. They will send 3 humans to frame the monsters for an attack which will give justification for these guys to murder everyone. Meanwhile Rimuru will be held at bay by Hinata, one of the Church’s most powerful fighters. Can Rimuru get back in time to win?

This was great and for another show you might have expected this to be the climax of the season. First off, we now know that there are more humans in the world which is a really big deal. We do know that humans are summoned and saw two of them in season 1 but now you have a fighting force of evil ones. Each human is also shown to be exceptionally powerful as they are treated as a powerful race in this world. As a sidenote, it is nice to see humans actually looking really tough as opposed to just being fodder in these fantasy settings. This also helps make the world feel even bigger as these 3 could be twisted leads in their own isekai adventures and now Rimuru has to take care of them. All 3 of these humans are complete villains of course so Rimnuru does have to hurry.

Another reason why the arc stands out is because Rimuru faces his first true challenge in quite a while. Due to the double barrier in place, all of his abilities have been greatly sealed while Hinata is at full power. This does tell me that Rimuru is already much stronger but of course excuses won’t matter if he’s dead. This was a great plan from Hinata from start to finish and I appreciated her confidence. This was absolutely a great fight as well and by this point in the show (Which is still fairly early) I knew that season 2 was going to rebound quite well from those opening episodes. You can almost skip those and not miss much tbh.

Hinata’s skill is something of a mystery though. By the end of the season we see her scaring opponents who are potentially even stronger than a demon lord or at least one with the rank but true power is more of a pseudo demon lord. So in theory Hinata wouldn’t even need Rimuru’s powers to be limited to stop him unless Rimuru had already passed that level. I’m inclined to say he had not at the time but his Gluttony ability bypasses defense so maybe that’s something she knew she had to avoid. Either way this is an arc with a lot of action and an incredible climax which even involves Diablo showing up. Rimuru also gets a big power up which will certainly be handy for later on.

After that we get a break in the action for a while as the next episodes are all meetings after meetings. I actually liked these episodes quite a lot though compared to the non action ones from before. For starters these are all serious meetings and not just an excuse to have a lot of fanservice the whole time. Additionally, I’m always up for a good strategy meeting so it’s nice to see everyone hanging out. It certainly could have been sped up but it’s fine either way. We also get a quick villain meeting which is a lot of fun and sets up the new characters as everyone gets ready for the main meeting.

See, the demon lords have a meeting for Walpurgis whenever there is something big to discuss. Clayman has summoned everyone for important news and now that Rimuru is so powerful and has the rank, he will be in attendance as well. Clayman has been the mastermind for pretty much every event in season 1 and 2 so Rimuru needs to be there to see his future plans and also to throw some threat around. Each demon lord can bring up to 2 attendants as well in case any funny business happens. That said, the attendants would likely be out of luck anyway though.

Meanwhile, Rimuru wants to take the initiative against Clayman and his forces this time so he’s having his army attack Clayman’s while they are both at the meeting. That means they are all sent to different areas to take down Clayman’s Five Fingers, a group of elite fighters. Given how powerful Rimuru’s guys are this is as much of a stomp as you can imagine but we do get a lot of great fights as a result. Even some of Rimuru’s fighters who don’t seem like offensive specialists show what they’ve got when it counts.

I would say this arc even beat the first one. It’s just the perfect climax to everything the series was building up to. Clayman may have looked really bad to the point where I wrote an editorial about one mistake that he made but it was still good to have him as the final boss. It made sense to get him out of the way and now every demon lord has to respect Rimuru and his abilities. You certainly can’t trust any of these demon lords either so that sets up a lot of interesting paths for the future. It’s really hard to say how things will play out as a result since everyone is keeping their cards close to the chest.

I have an eventual editorial coming up about the power levels in the series and discussing how powerful the heroes are so I won’t go into too much detail here. I will say that this is one of the most interesting parts of the series though. There are an absolute ton of factions running around and there are so many big shots that you will be curious how they all stack up to each other. You have the Demon Lords, Elder Demon Lords, Hinata, Diablo, Rimuru, Veldora, etc. Each of these guys have claims to be some of the strongest in the verse but who really outranks each other? Throw in the Clowns who seem to be exceptionally powerful with the fact that Hinata likely has her own bosses and it makes things very interesting. Veldora also isn’t the only dragon. So I won’t start ranking them here based on what I believe to be the correct ladder, but it’s something that Slime does quite well.

I dare say that only perhaps One Piece has more active factions and power level discussions that come from it. Otherwise it’s hard to top Slime with how many moving parts there are and it makes all the fight scenes even more interesting. Another reason why this show is so great is because you are always wondering what is going to happen next. Who will make their move and how will the world change as a result of it? While the Slime show loves its peaceful talks you know that eventually battles are going to break out.

At the same time you are never worried for the main characters though. Rimuru’s army is far too powerful to be endangered by anyone or at least it seems that way. Perhaps before he got a power up but in this season Rimuru gets a massive one which means that he greatly outranks almost every character in the series. While that may be a wrap for most of the tension here, you can still get some similar to One Punch Man by keeping Rimuru out of it. Much like that series I think this one was effective at pulling that off by giving the other characters their own big fights.

It doesn’t hurt that the animation is exceptional. There is a great deal of budget behind each fight with a lot of quick moves and solid special effects. Each battle stands out with the sharp colors and you will be on board right from the start. At no point in the season do you feel like the animation falters at all. Then you have the soundtrack which is also greatly improved from the first season. Surprisingly it feels like a lot of the season 1 battle themes have been completely discarded and replaced. I’m cool with that because these themes are just better. “Going Forward and Backward” for example is my favorite track in the show and it fortunately plays for almost all of the battles. It’s a great theme that immediately increases the tempo and gets you ready for a top notch battle.

I also greatly enjoyed the new theme song that plays for the second half of the show. (First is good too but not in the same league) Now this is a top tier opening with incredible visuals and a really catchy song. I’ve certainly listened to it a fair number of times. It’s also a good first look at Rimuru’s new costume even if he doesn’t wear it much in the season. I wish he would stick to that one because it’s easily his best one. It’s also fun that we’ve finally gotten to the Hinata fight since it felt like it was in the first 3 openings because they never knew when the fight was going to be adapted. Still feels off with how long it took but I guess the animators were really looking forward to that moment.

Rimuru continues to look good in this season and works well as the main character I think sometimes he doesn’t trust his own abilities as well as he should though and gets nervous over nothing. Still, gone are the days when he wasn’t really sure what to do. He’s now learned well how to be a true leader and takes command when needed. It’s hard to believe that the guy was just an ordinary joe not too long ago. Now Rimuru isn’t trying to be a hero but he is doing his best to be a leader who watches out for the people.

For example at one point he has to destroy I think it’s 100,000 people in order to bring back a few hundred. It was a no brainer for him since these guys were on the villain’s side and he needed to get his people back. Perhaps not what a hero would do there as this is the definition of trading lives for lives but it is something you would expect your king or leader to do for you. Rimuru set a strong example for his fighters that he will defend them at all times without exception. You also may feel like he didn’t need another power boost, but why not right? At this point it feels like Rimuru has to be top 10 in the verse at the minimum and I would argue he is likely stronger than that. We probably won’t know for a while.

Either way, Rimuru is able to hold his own seasons really well and had a good rage moment at Clayman when he struck Milim. That was a good way to know that Rimuru was for real. Meanwhile Great Sage is also fun. At this point it’s fair to say that she’s basically a character as she can take control of Rimuru’s body if he allows it so she can fight. Additionally she is always giving out helpful information and is almost like a sidekick that Rimuru can count on. She has a lot of attitude but that just helps for the banter.

After what feels like ages we finally get to see Veldora in his human form in this season. It’s nice to have him out of the prison for a change and his human form has a lot of fun with the cast. He is incredibly powerful as you would expect and certainly doesn’t back down to anybody. He gets a brief fight at the end which will cause you to really wonder about where he stacks up as well. Either way Rimuru has another good friend now and I think Veldora will fit in with everyone really well. He had a great first impression on them after all.

I’m still not a big fan of Gobta but I will give him credit for immediately believing his friend when the humans tried to frame him. Gobta wasn’t having any of that and that’s good because your friend should always have your back when it counts. So he may not be a great fighter but he’s a good friend. Meanwhile Benimaru gets a chance to show what he’s got as well. As always he seems to be the most impressive from his family of fighters and hasn’t really had to break a sweat. He even takes down a very powerful villain from season 1 in an instant which is very impressive. I don’t think he’s demon lord level but this guy can hold his own against anyone under that.

Shuna has her very best appearance in this season. Usually she just appears as the rather quiet and timid princess but here we get to see what she can do on the battlefield. Sure enough, she doesn’t need backup or for other fighters to protect her. She takes one on of Clayman’s leaders and shows him just how outclassed he is against her. Shuna’s magical spells are very impressive and she can be ruthless in combat. Now whenever she stays at the village we know that it’s in good hands.

Shion also looks great here and had one of the biggest improvements from season 1. She has really settled into her role as being Rimuru’s right hand woman and makes sure that nobody slanders him. When the villains start being sassy she quickly takes them out. While she mainly seemed evenly matched with Suphia, I think we all know that she would have won in the end with her big energy attack. Shion even takes a demon lord near the end which is further evidence of her power. In a true one on one fight she will not be going down easy that’s for sure. Her loyalty is also just great and she’s a fun character through and through.

Souei is the ninja of the group and his speed is always very impressive. He doesn’t look quite as powerful as the others but he gets less opportunity to fight like that. When he does join the fray you can usually count on him to get a win or look pretty good either way. The mentor of the group Hakuro gets a pair of fights to himself. The first fight doesn’t go very well for him but the deck was stacked against the guy. Once he is able to fight at full power then everything changes immediately.

Ranga is still around and while he doesn’t really get anything super big to do, he is always a loyal fighter for Rimuru. His ability to hide within shadows is handy and he gets a fight at the end but it’s mostly off screen. Now Milim is a character who gets a whole lot to do. I’m not sure about some of the twists with her though. There is a particularly big one near the end that will reframe all of her actions throughout the season but I’m just not sure that I buy it at all. Seems like a really convoluted way to go about things and it just doesn’t seem to make sense with the flashbacks of around when her plan would have started.

Either way it does show that she has great self restraint though. The characters rightfully do call her out on how this was rather irresponsible but I don’t think she seems too apologetic by the end of this. She is powerful enough where nobody would want to mess with her anyway though. She is one of the 3 top level demon lords after all so there’s almost nobody in the verse who could hope to beat her anyway. It’s why Rimuru got so lucky in having her as an ally.

Speaking of allies, Geld gets to have his first bit of action now that he is a part of Rimuru’s army and he looks good. His raw power is able to overwhelm his opponent’s regeneration. It’s a really intense fight to be sure as he just keeps pounding away at his opponent until the guy just can’t get up anymore. If not for outside help he would have ended things right there. As a power type I’m usually not going to think Geld will win much but he did really well here that’s for sure.

Unfortunately Diablo has not done much yet but he’s certainly a character that you will want to keep a real close eye on. He gets one fight in the season and it’s a really impressive one because he is able to easily overwhelm his opponent who is supposed to be incredibly powerful. In fact, we know he is based on previous appearances so the fact that Diablo is basically able to dumpster the guy is crazy. I have really high hopes for what Diablo will be doing in the future.

Yohm is an adventurer who gets a much bigger role here. He’s a nice guy who may not be extremely powerful but does rather well for himself with a sword. He has a bit of a romance with Myulan going. There is a rival in Grucius but you know that Yohm is the only one with a chance from the start. They three of them have a good dynamic though. I do think Yohm doesn’t handle the situation with Myulan very well though. As soon as things started to get fishy I would have liked for him to have been yelling for backup or trying to interrupt her technique. That would have made a world of difference for Tempest.

Of course things go well for Tempest but otherwise a whole lot of blame would be on Yohm. The most blame would be on Myulan though…you know for being the actual traitor. Ultimately she was under a bad circumstance here but still went through with all of this. Grucius gets some credit for trying to stop this from happening even if he wasn’t successful. I like his confidence but Grucius really doesn’t get any big wins here.

Then we get to good ole Clayman. The man with the worst plan possible and he makes mistakes at every turn. He really was in a good position initially but showed his cards too early and it cost him. Due to some twists it is even worse for him as we learn that Clayman was doomed for the start. He tries for some sympathy points at the end but Clayman was way too far gone by this point. No way you would really sympathize with that guy much. The situation is entirely of his making and now he has to live it.

Meanwhile the Jesters are interesting wild cards right now. They seem to work for Clayman’s boss and are really confident in their skills. It seems like they might all be Demon Lord level and if that’s the case then the heroes could really be in some trouble now. We’ll see how that plays out. Carrion doesn’t look great as far as demon lords go but to his defense, everyone would lose to Milim really. Or at least most of them would but when you factor in that she was sandbagging a bit then it gets really tricky for him. Ultimately it’s probably a good idea that he has decided to work for her though.

Ramiris might be the weakest demon lord here but she works well in the comic relief role. I like to think that she must have a crazy support ability to have become a demon lord though. Surely you can’t make it to that rank without having some kind of ability right? So I’m skeptical at how weak she is and figure she must be hiding something. All of the Demon Lords show up of course and while some are more impressive than others, they all seem like they can fight so something has to be going on here.

Leon is another one of the demon lords and he looks impressive. The guy hasn’t fought yet or anything but he has a confident atmosphere about him and doesn’t back down from a fight. Even Crimson who seems to be at the top regards him with a good amount of respect. While Crimon is always joking around you can tell that he does mean it when he says he would help Leon out if he was in a jam. I like the comradery between the demon lords. I’m sure some of them would backstab the others in a second but for others I do think they would be good friends. take Demon Lord Frey and Milim. They seem like good friends and Frey isn’t really the ambitious type so I don’t think she would have much motive to go around seeking more power. After all they’ve been demon lords for a while so I doubt they want anything to disrupt the balance of power. It’s why things should get crazy once that breaks down.

For miscellaneous characters first we have Suphia. She is one of the beast warriors and fights rather well. I like how aggressive she is and that makes the fight with Shion really good. Then you have the mysterious Yuuki. Remember that he did block Rimuru’s full powered punch when they first met so he can certainly fight. As a bit of a secret mastermind I could see him being a huge focus in season 3 unless he is truly the end game goal. Then there is Hinata who is a bit of a wild card since we don’t really know how the Holy Church will play into things. They seem corrupt already but at the same time I would assume that they won’t openly team up with the demon lords. I would love to see them as a true third party that causes trouble for both sides. Hinata has the raw power to pull this off after all.

The Church is manipulating her but I don’t think that’ll last forever. The question will be if she ends up joining the Tempest Federation or not. Personally I think she will just to make Rimuru’s army of unbeatable fighters even more impressive. Yamza is definitely Clayman’s most impressive minion. The guy can fight really well with a sword and while he was never a threat to the heroes, he looked way better than the other fingers. I wouldn’t have minded seeing him more that’s for sure, but I should be satisfied with his appearances here.

Middray and Hermes are fun characters who serve Milim even if she doesn’t seem to know about the Dragon Faithful group. Hermes is more of a rookie so he tends to lose his cool a bit. I don’t blame him for wanting to fight off Yamza though especially if he believes he could win. The whole arrangement seems one sided for Clayman’s army. Once again, the twist about Milim doesn’t help for scenes like this where they are only standing down because she has cosigned all of this. Not a great move that’s for sure.

I don’t agree with Middray allowing all of this disrespect though. He definitely has to defend himself when the villains are going in like this. It would go a long way to building up the kingdom’s credibility. Especially since he does seem very powerful. Not as strong as Benimaru or anything like that but he can take on many other fighters. Then we have Albis who is one of the stronger beast warriors. She has a full super form and everything which is always tough to defeat. She was the one fighting Yamza too who is an impressive opponent to be going up against.

Then we have the 3 otherworlders. They’re all total villains but made for entertaining characters. First up is Kirara who has the ability to hypnotize people so they agree with her. This doesn’t work in the wonderful realm of Tempest though since the demons can block that ability from working. She can also heal though which is very handy. Things don’t end very well for her though and it’s why you never want to be in a group of villains for very long. They will always turn on you.

Then you have Kyoya who is always acting very polite but it seems to be an act as he is just as crazy as the others. It only comes out during a fight when he’s winning though. Otherwise the guy stays quiet and tries not to make a scene. His sword skills are impressive as is his future sight. With that he can dodge attacks easily. His abilities feel like something an isekai lead could have too so it helps with the whole image of these guys being reverse leads. The otherworlders give us some of the top fights in the season too so credit there.

Finally you have Shogo who is effectively the leader here. He can punch really hard and his berserk skill improves his stats even more. That really makes him hard to stop. He ends up taking a whole lot of punishment as the fights go on though. He can dish it out but he certainly can’t take it. I like how the guy is always yelling but he’s definitely not a villain you can count on. Ultimately Razen gets the best of him but things don’t even go very well for that guy either. I liked Razen’s confidence though. I thought his arc was going to be a lot longer and that he would show up later but it just wasn’t in the cards for him.

That wraps up most of the characters in this season. Of course there are a considerable amount of other characters that I haven’t mentioned like the various kings, other members of Tempest, etc but the cast is exceptionally large so mentioning them all would take quite a while. It’s really an excellent cast and that’s part of what makes the show work so well. No matter what plot they go to you can bet that something interesting will be happening. Season 2 is quite busy with all of the plots and sub plots going on.

The show is really a blast and it’s also a very calming title. For most of the show you never feel like the heroes are in danger so you enjoy the spectacle of all the fights without worrying about the heroes much. There is a tense moment in arc 1 to be sure before Rimuru gets his power up but it’s safe to say that after that you don’t get a very serious moment like that again where you think this might get ugly for the heroes. It probably wouldn’t work if every show started making things too easy on the heroes but it’s just rare enough where it works as a change of pace. You’ll be having a good time throughout.

Even when the fights are not ongoing the show has a good amount of humor and solid writing to carry it at all times. Really the only problem with the show here that keeps it from being a 9 is that the fanservice can be quite excessive. Particularly in the opening episodes there is a lot of fanservice and it just keeps on coming. After that the show dials it back to more of a normal amount. Slime isn’t really the kind of series that ever totally gets past this issue but at least it’s mild enough where it takes a decisive back seat to everything else going on. It’s Rimuru’s primary concern when meeting one of the demon lords which is unfortunate for his character. I did say he is improved from season 1 a lot with experience and all but this is still an unfortunate trait of his.

Overall, You’ll definitely have a really good time with this season. Slime has certainly improved since its days in season 1. The animation and soundtrack have never been better. The story is also at an all time high and the pacing is good. The fights are on point and you’ll just be having a great time here. There is just so much action and no matter who is fighting you know you’re in for a treat. The power levels being mysterious is also good since it allows the series to go in a lot of different directions for the next season. Once we know that Rimuru really is the strongest then that’ll probably limit what it can do to an extent. Either way you’ll want to check this one out.

Overall 8/10

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