Levius Review

Posted on April 22, 2023 by dreager1

Levius is one of those series that I certainly hadn’t heard of before watching but it was quite the solid show. I’m always up for a good boxing title as it goes without saying that it would have a lot of action thrown into the mix. This one has a solid story to back it up as well and the last fight was quite a bit longer than I expected and that’s a good thing. It was quite climactic and usually you don’t see something like that outside of Shonen Jump so that was pretty cool. All in all it’s a great show with solid pacing and you should have a good time all the way through.

The show starts off by showing a city being reduced to rubble and machines kidnap a bunch of people in the area. In particular one girl was calling for help but Levius was too young and didn’t have the power to save her. This haunts him to the present where he is now a boxer. His destroyed arm was replaced with a metal one but he has decided to keep the other one. It puts him at a disadvantage against fighters who use two metal arms but it has sentimental value to him. He aims to gradually become the world’s greatest boxer but his coach Zacks suspects there is more to his dream than that. One day that girl appears again and Levius is determined to save her this time around. Will his strength in boxing be enough?

Now the show does have a plot outside of the boxing stuff but I would say boxing is absolutely still the main focus and as it should be since that’s likely why you’re here in the first place. The world building is more used to help set up Levius’ big reunion with the girl A.J. (Will just keep as AJ for easier typing) It does open up the possibility for a lot of interesting plots in the future but at the same time Levius is just a boxer. He’s not a CIA agent or anything so odds are that he won’t actually be getting mixed up in any of that. Unless a potential season 2 took a really big shift in story the global issues would be a different character’s concern. It’s actually an interesting angle as you assume there are a lot of big battles going on in the outside but we just don’t see them. Picture an end of the world event going on in Transformers but instead we’re following some big races.

The closest this ties in is the fact that AJ’s suit and mech is created by the guy in charge of the evil machine company. His name is Clown which is kind of fun. That’s his last name but it’s still his name. Imagine walking around and when someone calls you a clown you don’t know if it’s an insult or your name? I thought this guy made for an interesting villain but at the same time he wasn’t quite as good as he could have been. What I mean by that is he gives off the aura of being a great fighter and has a lot of mystery to him but in the end he goes out like a chump. It’s going to take some more time for him to build up his hype again. I still feel like he should be able to fight very well and must be powerful but we have yet to see any real proof of this.

Now the cast here is pretty small but that works well enough since the show is so short. It’s only 12 episodes after all so this lets them really dive into the characters. First up is Levius and he’s a solid hero. He’s the kind of guy who will jump in to protect someone even if it could cost him the match. His best moment was definitely when he went into the ring to save Hugo when his opponent was going too far. Levius was also making sure that any plan the heroes went with would be one where AJ was saved since he wasn’t going to resort to murder. He’s a very stand up guy and a determined lead to boot. He went through various fights without having any leads towards his true goal without ever losing hope. He’s also a nice guy too and when he has to let someone down he does it gently.

There’s really nothing to dislike about the guy. He’s a very well rounded main character. Then you have his uncle/coach Zacks who is also solid. Zacks used to be a fighter himself so he makes for a good coach. He knows what it’s like in the ring and always does his best to give good advice. It can be frustrating being the coach because sometimes the boxer just won’t listen to you even when you’re right but he still tries hard. Zacks has a big moment near the very end of the series which definitely helped to make him stand out. He actually contributed in a very direct way which made him stand out.

The mechanic Bill was also good even if he started to crack a bit towards the end. The pressure was nearly too much for him and so his emotionless façade broke down. Ultimately very few characters can truly be emotionless to the very end. Often times they will end up overflowing when the going gets tough which is always the tough part about internalizing. Bill was very good at his job though and even if he couldn’t get it done in the end, he came close and still gave Levius a whole lot of help.

Then you have Natalia who is a fun rival but her power level is a bit lower than I would have liked. The whole show I was expecting her to get some kind of a big win considering just how confident she is. Unfortunately it turns out that she is a bit delusional and can’t compete with Levius. Now she is still a good fighter as she was climbing up the ranks quickly but he defeated her early on and she just never improved from there. She has some more street smarts than he does and comes in handy for training but I would have liked a big moment for her that involved combat. Natalia is a lot of fun but she ultimately seems to be all bark and no bite.

After that you have the other 3 boxers who had a big role. First up is Malcolm and he’s known as a very dirty fighter who will do whatever it takes to win. The guy also murders all of his opponents. No that’s not a figure of speech, he literally makes sure to attack hard enough to always destroy his opponent to the point where that’s his reputation. Yes this is a futuristic form of boxing where everyone has on mecha armaments but even so he doesn’t have to do that. Malcolm is proud of himself for murdering everyone though and that’s why it’s hard to forget this later on when the show tries to paint on more of a sympathetic edge to the guy. I’m just not buying it, you don’t go from being a mass murderer to then forgetting about it. That’s not how this works.

The show sort of glosses this over a bit I’d say. He does end up donating to charities later on but it’s just a bit late for that. He makes for a good villain but it’s hard to see him as anything more than that. A hero or an anti-hero? I don’t think it’s quite deserved yet. He was certainly an impressive boxer though so nobody can really doubt his abilities in the ring. Those were definitely for real.

Then we have Hugo who was my favorite character in the series. The guy is just a very straight laced boxer who goes in and tries to take his opponents down by force. There are no tricks or gimmicks here, the guy just fights very logically and with a lot of force. He puts up a tremendous fight against AJ and really never wanted to give up. It was super impressive so while the guy may not have appeared a whole ton, he left a good impression. This is the kind of guy that you want to have on your side.

Finally we have AJ herself. She has the coolest mech suit in the series to be sure. It just looks really impressive and since she has the best tech developers behind her, her equipment is the most efficient as well. Her own natural fighting moves are really good too. Without the enhancements I don’t see her taking on Hugo or Levius but with them she’s basically unstoppable. I would even say they probably made her a bit too strong because you really don’t see Levius holding his own here. AJ was just too powerful with each hit dealing massive damage.

Throw in the speed as well and Levius was outmatched. I sort of buy into the whole taking advantage of her rage and making her sloppy at different points in the fight but lasting long enough to pull that off is where I have my doubts. Still a great fight though and the perfect way to end off the series. It was everything the show had built it up to be and it would be difficult for any sequel fight to top this one. Especially since it was basically 3 episodes long.

As for the animation, it is CGI so it’s not quite going to hold its own against the big hand drawn titles but I thought it looked well enough. They did a good job with the fights and the character models are on point. It definitely beats some other CG titles that I’ve seen in the past. Then with the soundtrack it’s good but not super memorable. I thought there were some decent action tunes mixed in there and the theme song was decent but on this aspect it’s a little more forgettable.

The show always does a good job of nailing the build up to the fights. I like the way the arena looks and you feel that excited crowd atmosphere for every fight. We get good cliffhangers during the episodes and the pacing is on point. The dialogue/writing are good as well and so the show can hold its own even when the action scenes aren’t happening. It even takes some time for more emotional type moments with the characters as they want Levius to abandon the fight several times when his opponent seems too powerful.

Ultimately Levius doesn’t waver which is why once again he is such a great character. No matter who is trying to get him to quit the guy just won’t listen. Above all else he has his own moral compass and knows what he needs to do in order to win. The show also doesn’t waste much time on the past. We get quick flashbacks for Natalia, Bill, and Zacks but it’s always very quick since they know we’re more interested in what’s going on in the present. Everything else can really just wait until another time.

If I have just one minor issue here it would be that the third last episode overdid it with the flashbacks a bit. It felt like half the episode was the characters remembering things and considering how short the show is, I don’t think almost any of them were necessary. You could have one or two quick ones if you want for narrative reasons but that episode was spamming them. I figure maybe they wanted a very specific episode ending cliffhanger and so this was for the pacing but it felt a little bit forced.

On one more positive note, I like how in detail they went on the actual boxing training. We got to see them practice the moves that Levius would be using in the actual matches. Each time it felt like there was actual coaching and adjustments happening which was nice. It’s not overdone or anything, it just helps add extra context and detail to the fights. I thought it worked out really well all around. The spin punch for example was a really fun technique and I also liked the side step technique Levius learned later on. The blur effect and the squeaky sound effect was satisfying. Moreover it felt like a technique that really could be effective with some practice and not something the show just made up on the fly.

In the end, if I was in this future there is no way I’d ever want to be a boxer though. It feels like you are constantly at risk of dying there and your opponent will get off completely free each time since it’s still just within the rules. One realistic element they included here is about bribing the association though. One boxer lands a hit on the referee but because of her group’s pull there are no penalties or anything like that. It’s pretty crazy but that’s the power of widespread influence I suppose.

Overall, Levius is a great show. What really seals it is how solid the fights are and the characters hold their own as well. You’ll have a lot of fun watching the show and it has a good amount of replay value. The ending is very satisfying so there really aren’t any weak points here. It’s also a very safe recommendation to anyone whether they be action fans or looking for a good story. The series has 0 fanservice in it which is always impressive and so the writers are confident enough in their story to keep everyone’s attention the whole time. This show really does all the right things and will be remembered fondly. It’s crazy to think about how this was all G3 level fighters, just wait until we reach G1! I’d definitely recommend checking this show out.

Overall 8/10

Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya – Battle for Sanctuary Review

Posted on April 1, 2023 by dreager1

It’s time to jump back into the world of Saint Seiya. It’s definitely impressive how many times we get to see the classic arc of the Bronze Saints running through the temples. This one does a good job of redoing the saga. Ultimately while the CG will always have its limits against the classic hand drawn style, it does a good job with the colors and action. It’s also setting up some original storylines for this version which is a good way to differentiate itself from the original story. All in all, whether you’re a fan of Saint Seiya or not you should still have a great time here.

Well last time things ended on a rather intense note as Athena was stabbed with an arrow. Basically this was no ordinary arrow and any attempt to pull it out of her would destroy the goddess immediately. The only one who can take this out is the Pope but he is the one trying to murder Athena. Seiya and friends have no choice but to go and invade the 12 castles and reach the Pope in Sanctuary. To do this they will have to defeat the 12 Gold Saints, the strongest fighters in history. Can they pull this off or are they already doomed? They won’t know until they try and as they are true heroes they won’t back down until they have made this a reality. It is time for their ultimate battle.

One of the fun things about this arc is how it’s basically nonstop action. The heroes go from one fight to the next without much in the way of breaks. It’s also what makes their victories even more impressive because they are fighting the strongest foes in existence and they are doing this without stopping to catch their breath or anything like that. Of course you know that Seiya is ready for such a challenge but what about the others? They haven’t had a chance to do much of anything in the Netflix version up to now. Well, you will be glad to know that they look better here even if Seiya is still the one doing most of the work.

One of the original storylines I mentioned involves Genet who didn’t just get written out of the story this time. Instead she continues to act as a knight and has been added to the Marin subplot. She gets an original scene involving confronting her master and at the rate we’re going she may get even more screen time in season 3. This change works pretty well as it’s a very natural way of expanding the cast and I think she has a lot of potential here. Hopefully she really gets to show her stuff and even takes down a strong opponent. I’m not asking for a gold saint in particular but beating a silver saint for example would be great.

One addition that didn’t work as well was Virgo Shaka’s skeleton minions. I didn’t really see the point of these guys. I suppose they were there to temporarily split up the saints again but it felt more like the show was stalling for time than anything. Like they were just here so that the season could end at a specific point. Perhaps that is exactly the case but they weren’t very interesting villains and of course one turned huge. That’s the CG dream after all, to throw in a giant boss. Even the movie did that but there was just no point for these guys and I couldn’t take them seriously. Since it didn’t come at the expense of the main story though I was okay with this.

Tauros looks impressive here as he takes out all of the saints aside from Seiya in one shot. Those guys were definitely found lacking when it counted but they did a good job of showing Seiya overcoming the odds. One thing I’ve really liked here is how he grows wings of energy when he powers up. It’s a really nice touch as the Pegasus saint and also makes him stand out. So I thought that was a really good idea right off the bat. I also like the way the cosmos is portrayed visually. When Seiya powers up you can really tell if he’s burning the cosmos at a higher level or if he can go even further based on if it’s just blue or blue and red. So the fight was satisfying.

The show also gave a better reason for why he and Mu aren’t helping out more. Because in this show they actually are helping out but then they get taken out by the Pope. It’s little details like this which the show executes well. It’s effectively looking at some of the criticisms of the arc and making changes to make things work a little better. Even the whole prophecy angle about how Athena will cause everyone to die is better than them blindly following the Pope. Not by a large margin mind you since I still blame them a whole lot but it’s still something. Every bit counts here.

Then we have the Gemini armor who crushed Hyoga rather quickly (This is a really bad season for Hyoga I have to say. He got wrecked by Aldebaran, then he got wrecked by Gemini, and then he got destroyed by Camus. The guy could not catch a break here) and then we get the good fight with Andromeda. It was certainly Andromeda’s stand out moment in the season so far as she made the most of her chain. I may not be the biggest fan of the chain in general but it still does turn up when it counts. The Gemini armor is also fun with how he makes the illusions and changes the fights up. You can’t approach him the way you would an ordinary foe.

Not much to say about Camus since he shows up and takes care of business immediately but I like how cold and calculating he is. The guy may not be heroic but you can imagine him protecting his temple with ease. Deathmask is still the biggest disgrace to the Saints. I can’t believe this guy was ever allowed to be a Gold Saint because you’d expect them not to employ actual mass murderers right? It would have been nice if they threw in a line about how the Pope only recently brought him in as a gold saint. That would have done wonders for the saints in general. Of course it was nice to see Shiryu crush him either way.

Then we got the really big fight with Aiolia which was always a standout battle. This guy’s light speed punches are incredible and he just keeps making them faster and faster. It’s a fight where Seiya has to keep on getting stronger and it’s fair to say that Aiolia has to be one of the most powerful Gold Saints. He at least does his brother proud in deciding to finally question the Pope and seek out answers. Unfortunately it doesn’t go great but the attempt was nice. He’s one of the few Gold Saints who is actually likable as a person rather than just as a villain to be defeated. We also get to see Aiolia take on Milo and considering how weakened Aiolia is, it was impressive to see him going toe to toe like that. I doubt many other Saints could have pulled that off.

Of course then we get to Virgo Shaka who is always very impressive with his power level. Many consider him to be the most powerful Golden Saint and those who don’t say he is second to Gemini Saga. You can make good arguments either way although I always do give Gemini Saga the edge here. His raw power is just so incredible but Virgo Shaka is clearly giving everyone a good fight. Fortunately Phoenix Ikki shows up for his big fight in the season. (Yeah I’m not going to call him Nero) Definitely one of the standout fights in the whole season with a lot of back and forth as we see exactly why Phoenix’s cloth is so legendary. No other cloth can regenerate like his and Ikki is basically immortal due to being the Phoenix saint. It’s a very potent combo to be sure and keeps him in the fight at all times.

Then we end with Seiya taking on Milo which was a cool way to end the season. Basically once again Seiya is the last one able to fight and you can bet that he won’t be going down easy. His dedication has earned him a spot as one of Jump’s top heroes. Meanwhile the other old bronze saints get to show up to protect Athena but in general that subplot does feel a bit out of place. The randoms of Sanctuary are treated as pure comic relief and it was a bit off putting just how extreme they were. It was like the show was trying a little too hard to be funny. I think Saint Seiya can certainly inject some humor into the mix if they want to but you have to be a little more subtle than this. You’re more likely to roll your eyes than actually chuckle at the characters. They are also insultingly weak so there is no salvaging them there.

Now with the animation the CG here is pretty good as I mentioned above. The colors are sharp and so the fights work well. There is more actual choreography and movement here than last time so the fights feel like they have a lot more substance. The theme song is still great here and so the show flows well on a technical level. The 12 episodes really fly by and I don’t really have any big negatives for the show. It adapts the source material pretty well and for the most part the additions only serve to enhance the story. The one exception would be the skull knights under Virgo Shaka and the comic relief soldiers who attack Athena. Those still aren’t bad enough to really hurt the series either.

It’s only natural that this beats season 1 also because it’s adapting source material that’s a lot more hype. 1 had a lot of great content to be sure but the Gold Saint fights are legendary for good reason. There are so many engaging moments here so each episode is a blast and a half. The cliffhanger here is also super effective and really works well to end things off. You can already recognize the formula to the fights so you sort of know how it’ll play out but that doesn’t take away from it being an emotional moment. Saint Seiya pretty much invented the classic format of being knocked down but getting back up again. It’s all about determination and these characters have that in spades.

Throughout the show all of the bronze saints are great. Andromeda can fight when she needs to, Hyoga always has his confidence even if he gets stomped a lot, and Shiryu is always fighting at a high level. He probably starts on a higher base level than Seiya. The difference is that Seiya has the best durability and continues to get stronger as the fight goes on so by the end he is always super powerful. His confidence feels the most earned from the group and he also takes this the most personally in protecting Athena so he just refuses to go down. Of course we saw a lot of that in season 1 already so I’m focusing more on Ikki here.

This is the first time we get to see Ikki as a hero and it’s really an incredible moment. Ikki can always be trusted to show up and protect Andromeda when it counts. He may have lost his way for a while there but now he is back to being the very dependable big brother that he always was. His fighting style is also noticeably different from the other Saints which helps him stand out. He’s all about outlasting the opponent and trading blows while Seiya tries to go for speed. Ikki just knows that the longer the fight goes on the more the advantage is on his side and it’s a smart strategy considering his abilities.

Overall, Saint Seiya is a franchise that keeps on expanding and you love to see it. I definitely won’t be forgetting this series anytime soon. Hopefully season 3 doesn’t take too much longer to come out but in the meantime you should definitely check this one out either way. It’s got a lot of top tier fights and a solid story so there is no reason to miss out on it. The show has no weaknesses which is rare to say about a show and the only sad thing is that it’s only 12 episodes. They cover a lot of ground here though. Hard to say what my next Saint Seiya review will be at this point but stay tuned as there is always something else on the horizon!

Overall 8/10

Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya Review

Posted on February 18, 2023 by dreager1

Saint Seiya is one of those franchises that just keeps getting better and better with age. The fights are always incredible and the characters are timeless. It is really like the original DBZ from back in the day. When Netflix announced a CG series I would say the two reactions I had was “Not CG!!!!” and “Glad we’re getting Seiya back”. At the end of the day I would have preferred some top level animation for a fun reboot but I’ll still take this so we have more content in the franchise. The show actually changes quite a few things up which is why I would call it an alternate retelling. The names are different, some attacks aren’t translated and the government gets involved this time. I actually think the show should continue to change things rather than being a totally straight adaption. It allows the series to really duck the usual comparisons that it would get right away and helps it to stand on its own as a stand alone show. That said I would have liked it if the names had stayed the same since they take a lot of getting used to.

So the series starts off with a Gold Saint appearing in Seiya’s home and kidnapping his sister after taking down some government workers. Seiya and his sister Patricia have the ability of the cosmos which allows them to perform superhuman feats that should be next to impossible. Unfortunately that was not enough to take down a Gold Saint warrior. Those fighters are way too powerful. Years pass by and Seiya figures his sister is dead as he has been unable to get any leads on her or on the mysterious gold saint. That’s when he is taken in by Sienna and her grand father who explain the lore about powerful Saints which will save the goddess Athena from the evil gods. Seiya doesn’t buy any of this hogwash for a second but they explain that it is the only lead to his sister so he’s in. Basically he first has to earn a bronze armor of his own and then he must compete in a tournament with other Saints. The difficult part here is that there is a guy named Vander who wants the power of the Saints for himself to save the world. Seiya and friends will have to watch out for this guy or be crushed in the process.

The season is pretty quick so we don’t really get to the Gold Saints much as this is mainly pre arc. At times it can feel like the series is going a bit fast to tackle everything but it goes at a good speed for the fights which is the important part. I mentioned that there were some changes here so lets look at the biggest one. It’s the inclusion of Vander who believes he is trying to save the world from utter destruction. He’s one of those villains who has some good ideas but unfortunately the heroes don’t really get to talk to him much initially and the guy goes off the deep end very quickly so he can’t be reasoned with.

I understand why he is skeptical to just let the Saints handle everything because what if they lose? In fact the prophecy claims that the Saints will lose this time and Earth will be destroyed so maybe taking matters into his own hands wouldn’t be such a bad idea. In fact he has done quite well so far in building a whole army of Saints which can even overpower Bronze Knights. He did this by himself with a small group so imagine if he had a bunch of real resources at his disposal? The bio engineered Saints have a great supply of cosmos and incredible defenses. They can draw on more power from the generator as needed too. If only Vander could have played ball and tried to meet the Knights in the middle then Earth would have been in great shape for the fights to come. Instead Earth is more defenseless than ever before now.

I also liked seeing the government show up to get some fights although the show could have done better with the power levels. There is one moment where the government shows up in a helicopter/plane and the Saints start talking about how they’ve got no shot and are going to be obliterated..only to destroy it in one shot as always. I don’t care what guns they have on those planes, one good hit from a Saint will break it every time so there is nothing to be afraid of. The characters always seem to think that a vehicle is safe only for a Saint to break it in the next scene. You’re better off on the ground at that rate.

I’ll never be able to take the government or any other human faction seriously against the Saints because they are so outmatched but at the same time it is nice to see them. I do think with the world going into danger soon it makes sense to show the real life impacts f that and that’s something that the show did pretty well. I hope to see this continue more. Also as a side note, I like how Seiya grows actual wings when he powers up his cosmo like a real Pegasus. It is a fun visual that makes a lot of sense if you ask me.

The soundtrack here is pretty solid. The opening is a lot of fun and works as a great remix. It gets you pumped for what’s about to happen. Within the actual show the osts are good too but my only issue so far is that there isn’t a lot of variety. You’re going to be hearing the same songs playing quite a few times the more you go through the episodes. I think just adding a handful of other themes would have helped prevent it from feeling like they were cycling through the same tunes all the time.

As for the graphics, well I would say the CG here is pretty good. It definitely looks like a video game and what enhances this even further is how each character jumps into a pre set animation cycle whenever they go into their final smash. Remember playing Marvel vs Capcom and activating your final smash only for someone to activate theirs a second later so yours does no damage while they get all the hits in. That’s basically what happens here on a number of occasions. Where the animation struggles a bit is during the actual combat. Often times the projectile attacks will look cool but the show doesn’t have a whole lot of choreography for most of the fights. This results in faster battles than you would expect. Battles are very important in Saint Seiya so I’m hoping we can get this upgraded a bit in the second season. Having animation that looks good is really important but having great fights is equally critical.

As always Seiya is a great main character. He is determined to save his sister and fights off all kinds of odds in order to do so. He’s the kind of guy you want to have on your side because he will never give up and he will continue to fight to the last man. He always surpasses his limits and gets a lot of great character development even over the course of these first episodes. He was always willing to defend those in trouble but by the end he has really begun to understand what it means to be a knight of Athena. Can’t wait to see more of him soon.

Meanwhile Andromeda is a girl in this version which was a pretty big deal back in the day. Ultimately her personality isn’t much different though. Perhaps she is a little bolder but that’s about it. Although by default I actually prefer her to the usual version for that reason since Andromeda was never my favorite Saint. She gets her whole plot with Phoenix here but for the most part isn’t winning many big battles outside of that. I should mention right now that Seiya easily steals the show and gets the most to do here, the rest of the Saints aren’t able to do much of anything. I mean they’re strong and we see them do cool things during their debut appearances but Seiya gets almost all of the fights to himself. He’s the guy you call in to fight all the real enemies and it shows what a gap there is between him and everyone else.

Cygnus is extra confident and mean in this one which is nice. He’s got an edge to his fighting style and even comes close to murdering Athena at one point. He does mellow out super quickly though. I think it would have been more effective if he had lost to Phoenix or something which caused him to really change his ways. Alternately I would have just kept him as being really gruff for the whole season and think that would have worked well. Regardless he’s a quality character and a good addition to the team. Definitely someone you don’t want to mess with and he is supposed to be one of the more powerful Saints with how he could keep up with Dragon and Seiya while the others couldn’t.

Dragon has always been one of the most consistent Saints. He has a lot of power as well as great discipline which allows him to attack and defend at the right times. He has his unbreakable shield and unstoppable fist which makes for a tough combo. He gets his big fight here while blind which was always impressive and gave Seiya a good match. Dragon is probably the most honorable member of the Saints and is always determined to fight for justice. He doesn’t like cheap tricks or winning in any way that isn’t 100% fair so it’s easy to like him.

Then we have Phoenix as one of the big bosses for the show. He had a very intense backstory so you can really see how he cracked. The guy was put through the wringer back during his childhood and really never caught a break. The show doesn’t hold back with the ordeals he had to go through and so now he just isn’t the hero that he once was. Of course in part due to the hellish training he had to go through, Phoenix is considerably more powerful than the other bronze saints. It’s always impressive just how strong he is and he never ceases to amaze during the battles. His fights are always cool and he has the best looking attacks. His fire techniques don’t stop and he’s easy to root for even when he isn’t the most heroic out there. That’s just how he rolls.

Meanwhile Sienna makes for a good Athena. She has the most powerful warriors on the planet trying to murder her and yet she doesn’t live her life in fear. She’s doing her best to hang in there and continue to fight the good fight which is admirable. She even gets to use her magic powers to block opponent attacks at times. I still wish she could fight more since Hades and Poseidon have no problem shattering worlds and firing off big energy blasts. You can’t tell me that Athena doesn’t have that kind of power within her somewhere right? Like it wouldn’t make sense that she couldn’t fight because in theory she has more cosmo than almost every other character in the series.

This is where I have to throw in that as always Aiolos is the best Knight here. He understood that murdering a literal baby was wrong and made sure to save her life even though he paid the ultimate price for it. That’s absolutely what you have to do if you consider yourself to be a true hero. I don’t see any of the other Gold Saints doing that to be honest. The Bronze Saints would but you still would expect the Golds to be better. One change this series did to try and make this not feel as bad is there’s a prophecy ~~that the pope made up~~ which says that Athena will lose the war. So he tells them that they should just murder her and fight the war on their own. This plan doesn’t make much sense though because you are just making your side even weaker and will lose by a greater amount now. Cmon that’s just easy match but the Gold Saint have about as much integrity as your average pickpocket so they are easily taken in.

It’s good that we have future arcs where they look good because this is why they always make me just shake my head at how villainous and unreasonable they are the whole time. I’ll at least give Aiolia some props because he is able to listen to reason after Seiya messes him up a bit. He also did seem to save Seiya’s sister although he’s intentionally vague about the whole thing. He really should have at least tried to tell him something about her instead of being cryptic. Would have made things easier later on I would expect. The rest of the Gold Saints are total sellouts as you’d expect.

Same with the Silver Saints to be honest. They show up to get absolutely devastated the whole times. The one who can read minds was fun though because that’s always such a good ability. I always like seeing how the heroes can get around that. Do they have to shut their mind off or just move really quickly? To date Yusuke Urameshi had the absolute best way of dealing with that. Man that series has so many good moments and Seiya is on that level which is why this series is so great. Even the weaker villains like Misty are able to see through basic traps and give the heroes trouble. I do like that because even if they aren’t the nicest folks, they had to go through a lot of diligent training to get to silver rank so it makes sense that they could do this much.

Then you have Shaina who really wants to beat Seiya up. Ultimately her character arc feels a bit rushed as the show gets through her scenes quickly but she’s fun as always. I liked her rivalry with Seiya even if it ends up being one sided very quickly. Seiya just improves too fast for anyone to keep up with him. There is also Marin who trains Seiya but I never liked her quite as much. I think she could have been better at assisting Seiya and giving him backup when needed. She is always using trickery and just overthinking everything though. Just team up with him already and the heroes can have another fighter in their group.

Finally we get to two of the other bronze saints who get a role. First up is Cassios who has a lot of raw strength but that’s all that he has going for him. It’s naturally not going to be enough against someone like Seiya whose punches break the speed barrier and will eventually go faster than light. That’s not the kind of power that you can really hope to deal with easily. He just isn’t that kind of fighter. Then there is Unicorn who has his little rivalry with Seiya as always but unfortunately he doesn’t get a ton of screen time. See I would have liked to have seen him absolutely giving Seiya the work or one quick fight between them. I always thought he was a lot of fun at least but he’s more of a comic relief character here and doesn’t get a big role.

The season ends with a massive cliffhanger that gets you hyped up for what will be coming next. That’s always a good way to end things off so I’m pretty psyched for what will be happening soon. At the end of the day this was a very fun show with a lot of action and quality visuals. Perhaps it isn’t the remake that people had been waiting for but if it had to be CG then doing this alternate version was absolutely the way to go. It keeps you on your toes and takes some interesting approaches to modernizing the story. I just think they should keep doing that in the next seasons too as you then have to keep your guard up to see what will really be happening next.

Overall, Whether you call this series Knights of the Zodiac or Saint Seiya, it will always be a really big franchise. The names can be hard to keep track of so just think of them by the names of their cloth/armors since those never end up changing. The show has no real weak points which is the main reason why I rank it so highly. The story is very engaging and I never got bored while watching this. If anything it just ends way too quickly so you wish there were more episodes right off the bat. Still the series did continue and will keep on going so at least there is nothing to worry about there. It’s certainly one of the upsides about starting a series once it has already been going on for a while. I’d definitely recommend checking this one out, it’s pretty nostalgic to see Seiya’s first fights again and the show isn’t lost in the shadow of the original.

Overall 8/10

Kuromukuro Review

Posted on January 25, 2023 by dreager1

It’s time for an anime that mixes sci-fi with classic samurai characters. This one never seemed to get all that big as I’ve never seen it mentioned at all online but it’s a pretty good show. The action is on point and the story is good although the ending definitely has a massive cliffhanger so some may be wary in jumping in with no season 2 in sight. That said, the ending is really hype for that reason as well. You’ve got a well balanced experience here.

The show starts with Kennosuke fighting off alien invaders in his mecha with the princess but a giant explosion occurs and she seemingly dies/possibly gets whisked away into a portal while he falls back into the planet. 450 years later he is woken up by a girl named Yukina who looks just like the princess that he used to serve and she was able to activate his robot to wake up from its stasis. She is just a normal girl and doesn’t understand what is going on here but neither one has much time to think things through as we find out that the aliens are returning. Their goals are unknown but humanity will need to be ready if they want to survive and that means training up more pilots. Many years have passed so we should have great robots now but will they be enough?

The show’s got a reasonably large cast for a 26 episode show and it covers a whole lot here. While I say that the characters don’t have a chance for downtime initially, they do get that time later on in the series. So we have a lot of fights but also some day to day adventures for some slice of life adventures. The series is very character driven in addition to having the action scenes ready and there is even some romance thrown in here as well with a lot of characters getting involved.

I would say the title is at its best when dealing with the main alien invasion though. One thing that helped to add some more layers here is that there isn’t just one alien race involved. There’s a mysterious man with a mask who claims to be from a different alien race and he actually looks more like an ogre than what the main aliens that Kennosuke claims are the enemies. In fact those look like humans so the main characters have to determine if Kennosuke is actually being honest with them or if he’s hiding something. Naturally any secrets can hurt the morale and unity of the troops so you need to know that sooner than later.

Lets start with the technical elements though. The animation is very sharp for the human scenes. The colors pop out and there is always a lot of movement going on. The robot suits can be a little clunkier but you still get a lot of fun battles which only get more impressive as they start growing wings and using swords. I have yet to see an unimpressive aerial battle with robots and this was no exception. The fights do get good here and I didn’t walk away with any real complaints on the animation. It remains consistent throughout the whole run.

The soundtrack is a little more on the forgettable side. It’s not bad per say but the opening is a little underwhelming and you will have a hard time really remembering any of the tunes in the episodes. I actually looked up the ost while writing this review to check some of them out and some of the tracks are good but they will mostly blend together in the background as opposed to dominating the scene.

Kuromukuro can have a bit of a fanservice issue at times though. Mainly this tends to always occur when Yukina’s classmate Mika shows up. It’s a shame because Mika is easily one of the best characters in the series as a loyal friend always ready to help out and cheer everyone up. So she would have been cool without those scenes and it distracts from her quality moments. There was also an odd massage scene that seemed to be going out of its way to be a bit iffy when they could have just played the scene straight as a good recovery method. Naturally there is no fanservice during the fights so this really just shows up during the downtime so it’s not super frequent but does happen enough to be noticeable.

Now with the aliens running around a common trope is that the government will make the wrong choice and turn on the heroes right? That happens all the time here and for a while you figure maybe this will be the exception but the government looks really awful by the end of the series. It’s unfortunate because they last for quite a while but in the end they basically just decide to self sabotage themselves. The show doesn’t portray this as the ultimate betrayal you would expect it to be and the ending is still rather light as there isn’t much that the teens can do about all of this but most of the adults here lost all my respect by the end. Only certain characters who took a stand and made their choice were exempt. It’s no wonder Earth falls so easily in pretty much every sci-fi story.

Okay back to the story though. So Kennosuke has sworn to protect the princess for his entire life and so he still wants to find her but in the meantime he vows to protect Yukina as well since she looks like the princess. Also, as she woke the robot up, they are now linked as pilot and support for the mech. It can only work at 100% power with two riders and nobody else can connect so in a way their destinies are connected now. Some characters aren’t so thrilled about this but what are you going to do right?

It starts off as more of a monster of the week setup but gradually we meet the main villain cabal and get more of an ongoing story here. For example there is a mysterious lady named Muetta who looks just like the princess but is working for the villains. What’s going on there? Then you have a guy from school who likes Yukina and is super jealous of Kennosuke but is also feeling a huge lack of confidence because Kennosuke is just so much more powerful and talented. This guy can’t hope to beat him in a fight so what else can he do? So starts some of the drama.

In general I would say the romance here isn’t great. There are quite a lot of them going on here like with the classmates even outside of the main romance. The problem is that for a lot of these it’s too soon. Take Kennosuke, he liked the princess and then falls for Yukina who looks just like the highness but is he really liking her then or just seeing the princess in her? The show actually deals with this fully so I’ll give it some props there. The reason why I also give the romance some more credit is it doesn’t go 0-100 and even by the end of the series it’s still ongoing and now years have passed. So they’ve actually had time to develop even if Kennosuke can still be a little iffy about the cosplay pictures.

The romance with Mika and the shy kid Jose was more on the cringe side. I mean that’s his whole thing like when he tried to make an emotional message appear in a video he shot for the class and nobody noticed. I never ended up liking Jose though, he tries really hard but didn’t have a ton of personality by the end. The rest of the slice of life elements could be fun enough though. Perhaps filming a movie dragged on a little bit but playing sports and going on field trips was a nice way to explore the characters more. It was successful enough in that the whole class (The named characters at least) remain memorable even after you have finished the show. You won’t forget any of them.

In terms of balance it would probably be nice if the heroes had more resources though. They seem completely doomed if the villains got serious about fighting them. Keep in mind that it’s Earth against the whole villain empire which is apparently many, many planets strong. The only reason Earth hasn’t been wiped off the planet is because they want some resources and because the villains are too proud to ask for backup. See, there are 5-6 main villains in the cabal and they figure asking for back-up would cause them to lose face…so they just don’t ask. I mean perhaps they would be blown up so it may be a smart move but Earth really gets lucky all the time because they aren’t ready for a huge fight which is made clear every time the villains attack. If Kennosuke wasn’t around they would have gotten eliminated rather quickly.

Now lets jump into the characters. First up we have Kennouke who is a loyal samurai. He doesn’t know much about the modern world so he has the classic fish out of water arc but manages to not be very annoying about it. Considering all the hoops the government has him jump through, he does his best to comply. He’ll still stick with his sense of justice though. The only time he wavers a bit in a bad way is with dealing with Muetta since she looks so much like the princess. He froze up when it counted which was unfortunate but beyond that I wouldn’t say that he made any real mistakes. His fighting abilities are the real deal as well.

He does try to keep Yukina away from danger a lot but aside from the fact that it makes sense in a historical setting since you would usually try to keep women and children away from the battlefield, he also knows that she can’t fight and they’re up against aliens who show no mercy. So it’s totally reasonable on his end but of course the choice is quickly taken out of his hands considering that he can’t even pilot the robot without her. He tries to fight one while on foot but that doesn’t go very well. I tend to like characters that are very honorable and so Kennosuke made for a good lead.

Meanwhile Yukina is a solid heroine. At first the whole thing is a little too much for her and so naturally she wants out but once she sees that this is really happening then she gets on board. Yukina does her best to help out, even fighting when necessary. She may not stand out as much as some of the other characters but her bravery can keep pace with them and I don’t really have any negatives for her. I was also glad that she flat out rejected Ryoto as opposed to keeping him guessing.

Ryoto is the guy who likes Yukina but you know that he’s doomed from the start because he’s not the main guy. Apparently he also used to lightly bully/tease her back in the day based on some of the character dialogue although it was all prior to the series starting. This guy tries his best to get her to notice him but ultimately she just says that’s not going to happen and by the end of the series he has slowly started to accept this. He didn’t have a whole lot of purpose in the series but at least he was never selfish about the whole thing. He didn’t try to sabotage the heroes or do anything petty. He was upset with Kennosuke the whole time of course but that was about it.

Jundai is another one of the classmates who gets a fairly big role. He likes filming everything which is his big gimmick. Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot to him beyond that. He also tries filming Mika a bit when she’s not aware of it which quickly dropped him all the way down. That’s usually not part of his character but one time is all it takes. I already talked about Mika being a fun character so not much more to say about that. She never doubted Yukina or Kennosuke no matter what others said and she helped him get used to modern day life without making a big deal of it all.

Marina is the school counselor but she’s woefully unprepared for virtually every situation in the series. She really wants to be helpful but just has a super tough time with it because she’s too scared to actually talk with people straight on. I wouldn’t say she ever got to be a very great character for me personally. If she was more confident that would have gone a long way.

Then we have Sophie who is a prodigy and is very good at using her mecha even though she is still a student and not yet a professional. She has actual practice with the sword and this translates into her piloting skills. She seems to like Kennosuke initially but gradually gets out of the race as the series goes on. She usually keeps a calm head and is always a reliable ally to have. Since most of the supporting characters didn’t end up being too helpful in the actual fights, it was good to have someone who could really fight here.

Hiromi is a character who could have easily ended up not being very good but the show handled her well. She is Yukina’s mother and also one of the chief scientists. That means she is often put in a position where she has to side with the government and can’t trust Kennosuke all that much. She is also always very busy so Yukina feels like she is neglectful. In some shows this may be the case but this time I actually thought she did a good job of always being there for Yukina. Later on when she is forced to really have to choose between the government and her daughter, she wisely picks Yukina. That was where she solidified herself as one of the better characters here. There comes a time in every character’s life when they have to make a choice and you always want to make sure you make the right one.

Tom and Liu are two of the professionals who lead the defense force. They are quickly rendered moot once Kennosuke shows up but to their defense they are still a tough combination and hold their own against the villains. Tom is the hot heads of the group while Liu tries to hold him back and is definitely the calm member. They make for a good duo but you do feel like their role in the show isn’t huge either way. You could probably cut them out and not much would change.

Takehito is another character who doesn’t appear all that much. He’s Yukina’s father and seemingly died a long time ago in the woods but it’s hard to tell if the aliens got him or something else. As the show goes on we do learn what really happened to him but I can tell you that it’s a little underwhelming. Ultimately I didn’t think his plot ended up being all that engaging. It’s mainly used for world building which is great of course but it tends to be more on the dry side so you’re always waiting to see the main characters again.

The same is true of Zell to a large extent. He’s the mysterious alien from a third party faction and at least he has the whole intrigue on his side. Is he friend or foe? You have to decide how much you actually trust him as the series goes on. Sure, he did end up saving the heroes once or twice but sometimes that’s just a tactic to try and get into their good graces so you can’t afford to let your guard down. In the end i thought he was okay. A bit soft spoken for my tastes though and he tends to fade into the background instead of stealing the scenes that he’s in.

Then we have Sabastian who is Sophie’s butler and you might expect him to have a small role but he ends up doing quite a lot by the end. He can fight and knows how to pilot a robot. He takes his job of protecting Sophie very seriously and you end up being impressed by the commitment that he puts into this. Most butlers would have absolutely faltered before he did. Meanwhile you have Koharu as a nice little character. She’s Yukina’s sister so she’s too young to do much here but helps make Kennosuke feel at home and is generally a nice person.

Then you have Arthur who is the big government general but he looks pretty bad. Mainly my issue with him is the fact that Kennosuke helps out so much and the guy still won’t trust him at all. More specifically, it’s fine if he doesn’t trust him so long as he doesn’t do anything about it, but he handcuffs, arrests, zaps, and ultimately keeps betraying Kennosuke at every turn. This guy is actively working against his planet’s own defenses after a while. A key moment in this is when he sends out the robot army against Kennosuke.

Keep in mind that the planet only has maybe 3-4 active robot fighters at any given time and so each one Kennosuke is forced to damage is just leaving the planet in further ruins. Arthur always just appears as very shortsighted and he just looks awful at the end of the series. The characters probably should have just did a full revolt by the end of it all. With him as the leader they aren’t going far.

Now as for the villains, the most important one is probably Muetta. After all there’s the mystery of her looking like the princess which is a big deal. She’s a fun fighter and can fight in close quarters as well as in her mech. She has some amnesia so she doesn’t remember a whole lot…makes it easy to theorize some things. She added a fun bit of mystery to the series so it was definitely fun to have her around.

Lefil is the leader of the villain cabal but unfortunatley he doesn’t live up to the hype. 90% of his screen time is sitting upon his massive thrown and talking tough but when it comes time to put his money where his mouth is, the guy falls short. He just isn’t able to keep up. Sure he is technically a good fighter but the show really needed to depict him doing a little more to justify his position at the top of the foodchain.

Meanwhile Mirasa gets a big role because of how jealous she is of Muetta. Mirasa wants to be known as the top villain and so she goes around lying and trying to take Muetta down. After a while keeping up the lie of Muetta having died is rather difficult since Muetta is still running around. Mirasa really digs her own grave here and while it’s always fun to have villains in-fighting and creating their own factions, I was rooting for anyone to take her down. Mirasa just felt very petty.

The rest of the villains mostly don’t have big character arcs or anything like that. Imusa and Hedo mostly just blend in with the others but the way Hedo goes out was almost funny so he loses extra points there. Finishing yourself off is almost never the right way to move up the ranks. Fusunani at least had the moment of busting out of jail and taking a lot of names to bump him up the list. That was a very impressive sequence. Finally Yoruba had a flying mecha which was really impressive since that is exactly the kind of suit you want to have to fight the more impressive opponents.

Yeah there were quite a few characters here and it helps to get the feeling across that this is a true war. It’s an alien invasion that the main characters are fighting off and so of course you should have a number of different villains to go up against. Having just one or two just wouldn’t feel right. I would definitely be hyped for a sequel to this someday though. How I see it, they are going to have to introduce a bunch of new characters and weapons for the heroes to stand any chance here.

Without going into details, there is quite the large time skip at the end and considering that Kennosuke was heavily outnumbered I’d assume that logically he’s dead by the enemy’s hands. If we get a sequel I’m sure he will be alive so best bet is they captured him but if somehow he’s winning I won’t be able to buy that. He has trouble just fighting a 2 vs 1 battle, how can he handle hundreds of these guys? The ending doesn’t paint a very hopeful picture for his odds even with Yukina getting ready. At least she can fight pretty well now too but there’s a big gap between fighting very well and conquering historic odds.

Overall, You should have a good time with Kuromukuro. I’d consider it to be a fairly strong Sci-Fi adventure. It gives you a lot of time to really get to know the characters which is something that many shows don’t have time for. The battles are always a lot of fun but it’s also nice to be able to just hang out with the characters. There is plenty of time for this in titles like Naruto and Bleach which is part of why they’re so huge but titles under 30 episodes usually don’t have as much time for it. There’s a good balance here and that’s why I’d say it’s a fundamentally sound show all around. I’d recommend checking it out even if the government will annoy you the whole time.

Overall 7/10

Romantic Killer Review

Posted on January 14, 2023 by dreager1

Romantic Killer is a bit of a different romance title but you can probably guess that from the title. The main heroine isn’t going to make things easy and that’s why she refers to herself as the Anti-Heroine. It’s a nice spin on things which you’ll see once I get to the plot. The ending doesn’t drop the ball on this either so it stays true to the plot and I would say this is a pretty good adventure.

So the show starts by introducing us to Anzu who is really having a great life so far. She has a nice pet cat, her collection of video games, and a whole lot of chocolate! Yeah life is pretty much perfect but one day a fairy named Riri infiltrates Anzu’s home and announces that Anzu’s top 3 possessions in life will be taken away from her. Anzu can no longer eat chocolate, her cat has been taken away, and her video games are also gone. The only way to get these back is to fall in love with a guy. Yes, Anzu is being blackmailed into falling in love by this fairy who basically says that she is doing it for Anzu’s own good. Anzu refuses and says she will not get a boyfriend no matter what happen and Riri puts this to the test by using her magic to summon a bunch of guys in the most contrived situations in order to break Anzu. Can she stay strong?

I think part of the big thing that separates this from the other shows is how Anzu is so completely against getting a boyfriend. In a lot of these shows the heroine technically wants to find a guy but it’s either tough to confess her feelings or things just weren’t working well. Here, Anzu is against this but you are supporting her because of the situation.

If a fairy shows up to ruin your life and said you would only get it back by getting a boyfriend, wouldn’t you want to rebel? You want to control your life and how things go but letting yourself get manipulated is not a good idea. You’re completely rooting for Anzu because of this without a doubt. You could even say that there is a tragic angle to this as it means that Anzu really can’t give any of the guys a fair shake as a result. I can’t say I felt bad for them though…this is just how it goes sometimes.

The show’s almost like a competition between Riri and Anzu or you could also think of it like a video game. Every time Anzu stops one guy she is met with an even tougher challenge in the next level. Since Riri has magic it’s also not like there is any chance of this stopping anytime soon. The game is set up against Anzu for sure because there is no end date to this. In theory Anzu could be doomed to not have her possessions forever which is pretty rough to think about. So time is on Riri’s side as Anzu’s resolve could theoretically start to shake the more the days/months/years go on.

It goes without saying that I don’t like Riri for this reason. She is just trying to force Anzu into love which is absolutely the wrong approach. I know Riri is merely an employee working for some really tough bosses who will do whatever they want but Riri still has a choice not to do this. The only possible way I could defend Riri is if she gave Anzu some kind of a chance and a reward to even things out. For example, declaring that Anzu has lost her 3 possessions for a full year and if she makes it through that period without a boyfriend then she will get something extra. I dunno, a million dollars or something. That would really raise the stakes.

I’d say Riri is also annoying because you can’t count on her when the going gets tough. Things get serious near the end of the series as we get a real villain and some life or death stakes and suddenly Riri’s magic isn’t so helpful. Either the wand is dirty or she’s too slow to help but it’s just annoying. Seriously what’s the point of magic if you can only show up in time to annoy everyone?

Riri also sometimes acts against her best interests by getting Anzu into tricky situations that make the other guys a bit wary. I suppose the long con here is getting the other guys jealous enough to make a move but eh…..doesn’t seem worth it. There’s really no point in Riri shapeshifting into a guy except to make things tough on Anzu and cause misunderstandings. At least Riri does one nice thing by the end but that’s about it.

Now for Anzu, well I was quite pleased with her character from the start. You absolutely empathize with her because her top 3 hobbies are very relatable. Who doesn’t like to just enjoy time with their pet, video games, and eating some chocolate on the side? Those are the top 3 hobbies out there and so when they are taken away you can understand her anguish. The fact that she immediately takes such a hard stance against having a boyfriend was brilliant.

Throughout the show she conducts herself well. One thing I appreciated is that she isn’t rude about it. Anzu is quite straight forward about not wanting to get romantically entangled with anyone but is still willing to be their friend and just a nice person in general. It would have been so easy to make the main heroine a jerk but the show doesn’t do that.

Anzu is also potentially putting herself at a disadvantage by letting herself be close to these guys but she just wants to do the right thing and that’s great. Doing the right thing is its own reward after all. Anzu can also fight a little bit as needed even if she doesn’t get to go hand to hand against the main villain. That would have been nice but she stood in there and didn’t give up.

She is also able to talk back to any bullies and defends her friends. We get a quick flashback later on in the series with her best friend Saki and see how Anzu just squashed all of the bad rumors. Anzu doesn’t let any injustice happen on her watch and this continues into the present when she tells off the girls who were going after Tsukasa.

A lot of times when a girl asks if the heroine can let her meet up with the main guy, the heroine relents. Usually it’s a mix of “Well, he’s not my boyfriend so I don’t care.” or “Sure, I don’t see any harm in that.”. This was better as she just said she wouldn’t be a party to any of this and wouldn’t set up anything since Tsukasa obviously didn’t want to hang out with these characters. Anzu speaks her mind which is a big upgrade from many characters.

Her friend Saki doesn’t get a whole lot to do here since most of the show is about Anzu meeting up with the various guys but she did good in her limited screen time. She had a really rough backstory that also shows why she is so close to Anzu now. She really rebounded from how things used to be to still be popular and nice in the present instead of jaded about everyone.

Now lets talk about the guys. As they’re all effectively boss battles, I’ll describe them like video game fighters. I should note that Riri does make sure to mention that she isn’t mind controlling anyone. That would have been a very dubious moment after all so while she dos create circumstances to play matchmaker, the characters all do actually like Anzu of their own accord. This was a good move by the way as all of the romances would have really been doomed otherwise.

Of course I can’t say that I was really on board with any of the romances here either way. I stand with Anzu in staying strong against these guys since the fairy is trying to play matchmaker with blackmail the whole time. So without that then maybe they’d have a chance but nah that’s game over until the deal is over.

So first up we have Tsukasa. He’s the cool guy in school who is mega popular but really cold to any girls that are around. He’s got a tragic backstory and his best asset is the fact that he is always around. Put it this way, Riri flooded his house so now Tsukasa has to live with Anzu for a while. That means since they are together a whole lot there isn’t a way to really avoid him.

It would be difficult not to become friends after that and so keeping the line drawn is the tough part. For Tsukasa it’s easy to see why he falls for Anzu because up until now he’s always been around a lot of very judgmental people. Anzu is the only one who treats him as just an ordinary guy and is super casual around him instead of putting on a persona.

Then you have to also factor in Tsukasa’s childhood tragedy involving a stalker named Yukana. basically Tsukasa was traumatized by her because of how unhinged she was. She would buy him clothes and follow him around and ultimately even drugged him. He was very fortunate that things didn’t escalate past that. So he’s unable to really feel free outside as he doesn’t want her to find him again.

He easily has the most amount of screen time and development so even though there are a few guys here and it’s more of an ensemble show, it’s fair to say that he is the main guy here. The climax even revolves around him so at the end of the day you figure that while he is the first boss battle of the show, he also works as the final boss. Anzu has to be careful around him.

Then we’ve got Junta and his biggest attribute to watch out for is that he’s the Childhood friend. He moved away for a while but he’s back now and is ready to try and make a move. He’s loved Anzu for many years and never got over her but of course she never really noticed this. I mean that’s on Junta for not saying anything though. When you’ve got a crush you have to either silently get over it or let the other party know but staying silent is the only way to really lose.

Junta is great at sports and is a super nice guy. As the nicest member of the guys that is another aspect of his to watch out for. He gives everyone a fair shake but can be stern when needed. He lacks self confidence which may make it easy to give him sympathy points though so that’s something else to watch out for. On one hand, the fact that he’s liked her for years helps in the romance angle because it’s not super sudden like Tsukasa. It’s more of a believable romance even if Anzu never noticed him before.

Of course at the same time ending the plot as an unrequited love while tragic always makes things a bit more compelling as you get to see him slowly accept that just being a normal friend really isn’t that bad. If he was a bit bolder then I would like him more but I rarely like the characters who really aren’t confident like this. He tends to throw in the towel early until he’s given a motivational speech.

Then you have the third main guy here named Hijiri. Well he’s rich which is always a very tempting attribute in any character. If Anzu ends up with him then she will be set for life and will never have to worry about anything ever again. You should never marry for riches of course…but it is probably the single most tempting thing aside from pure love.

Hijiri is used to everyone throwing themselves at him so of course the fact that Anzu isn’t interested at all just makes him want her even more. He has a tough time acting normal though and tends to throw around insults by mistake and can be generally annoying. Showing him how to live life as a normal person is something Anzu might feel instinctively so she has to worry about that. Of course she also has to be careful that she doesn’t just feel bad for him since he’ll be crushed. Pity dates are never a good idea.

Those are all of the main guys. There are a few supporting characters like Tsukasa’s friend Makoto who is around but it’s not like he’s ever involved in the romance. There is one extra guy for romance but his role is really small. His name is Ryuya and he’s really just annoying. He’s another childhood friend who liked Anzu but unlike Junta who was too shy to make a move and stayed quiet, he ended up teasing her a lot because of his crush.

You don’t see that happening as much nowadays but I do remember it being a really big thing for a while where they say you would tease and bully the person you like accidentally because you didn’t know how to interact with them normally. I gotta admit I always thought this was a super lame excuse. Seriously, your way of dealing with your feelings is to be mean to the person you like?

That’s just awful so nah I wasn’t going to root for him. Ryuya is super petty and nearly messes up the reunion for everyone by getting into his feels like this. It’s just not a good look for him at all. Maybe a tiny part of you feels bad for him…but it’s a super tiny part that is almost nonexistent. Anzu didn’t take any of it seriously at least and barely even remembers him so he should have just taken it in stride and kept it moving. They could totally be friends in the present without all the awkwardness but he really makes a spectacle of himself for a while there.

Finally we have some of the supporting characters from Tsukasa’s plot like his sister Arisa. She’s probably the only super nice member of the family. His father is a bit crazy as he blames Tsukasa for everything and unfortunately his mother tends to be a bit more passive about the whole thing. This really forced Tsukasa to have to move out and live on his own.

In part this would help him avoid the stalker but it’s also because he wasn’t getting any real support here. His father seemed to have a very old fashioned idea that if there were issues with a girl then it means that the guy led her on. He never even tries to hear Tsukasa’s side of the story and blames him entirely. This even continues on to the present. I wasn’t expecting him to stay as a villain in the present but it gave Anzu another really good moment.

Considering how much he went through, Tsukasa definitely turned out well. I also can’t say that he really made any big mistakes with how he handled the stalker situation. It’s really hard to know just how to handle something like that but he tried ignoring her, talking to her directly, but nothing would work. With someone like that who is clever enough not to break laws too openly escape can feel like the only real option. Especially since even once the courts get involved it doesn’t deter her.

Yukana is the stalker and the final boss of the series. It was nice to have some action at the end here for sure and when she took out the knife you knew things were going to get intense. It is crazy that with such a big cast, one person can make so many waves but the whole situation is handled pretty realistically. The show is mainly comedic but the whole stalker situation is handled super seriously. Riri at least helped a bit in summoning everyone at one point to deal with some bullies (Who had the least believable redemption arc in the franchise. They looked awful and were actually going to beat up Anzu so they shouldn’t have been forgiven so easily. I thought they should have been arrested personally) but Riri’s reasoning for not taking down Yukana directly was really weak.

Riri does need Anzu alive and well to get the mission completed so Yukana is an active threat. Ergo it should be reasonable to take her down but Riri is not convinced and can’t make a move without that confirmation. It’s definitely annoying and feels a bit contrived since otherwise there would not really be a big climax like this. With magic ending it all would be easy.

The humor in the series works well. I would say that it is rarely laugh out loud levels of funny but you can appreciate the humor. I liked how fake they made the first dating sim look which helped to illustrate just what Anzu thought of the whole thing. A whole show with those graphics could actually be rather fun. You can also appreciate this from the guy’s point of view here as well since they all like her and she just has no interest in returning those feelings.

Think of it like everyone falling for the popular girl in school. Usually in the movies there is the main guy who ends up breaking past the pack and they get together so this show is more like if there was no guy. Everyone here are the bit players in the average movie who are doing their best to get her to notice them and it’s all to no avail. None of their feelings are being returned and that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Meanwhile the animation for the show is good too. I get the feeling that it wouldn’t work too well with a lot of movement because it feels a bit rigid but at the same time the colors really stand out. Everyone has eyes that are really sharp and the colors are on point. For a show like this where there won’t be big action scenes I think it makes sense to focus on the artwork than on pure animation. Because of that the visuals will really age well even several years from now. It’s why all of the screenshots look so sharp here as well. The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side though. I really couldn’t recall a single tune by the time the show was over but I want to say that it did work well while watching the show.

There is an interesting gimmick where any bugs are turned into different cakes in the show. It’s super random but I’d say that it works because of that. It’s almost like the show is throwing in some photoshop and you can’t go wrong with that. I guess Anzu needed one weakness as well since otherwise she was shredding all obstacles. So since she is scared of bugs that throws the guys a little lifeline to use.

Overall, Romantic Killer is a pretty fun show and I definitely had a good amount of fun with it. It succeeds by focusing more on the challenge and comedic aspects than the actual romance. The serious stuff was handled well too but to me the comedic moments are when the show is at its best. I’d be down with a season 2 to see how this continues on and if they stick to those fundamentals then I think it would be in good shape. In theory Anzu should still be trying to stay strong and it would focus more on the guys doing their best to win her over. It would make for a fairly unique spin on the whole romance genre and if it balances in the humor like this one did then I think it would be a success. Of course the ending is always really important for a show like this as well so they do need to make sure to stick the landing. I believe the show can pull this off though. The ending here could have easily been dodgy but it wasn’t so that worked out.

Overall 7/10

Klaus Review

Posted on December 9, 2022 by dreager1

It’s time for a Santa Claus origin story. You’ve probably seen some of these around and Santa always makes for a fun character to watch. Well, this one takes a bit of a different look at the classic tale and switches some things up. It’s a fun way to readapt the legend and you should have a good time with this movie. It’s a classic feel good film.

The movie starts with Jesper failing at being a mail man. He just can’t seem to do anything right but his father is wise to this and realizes that Jesper is failing on purpose so he can go back home to slack off. His family is rich after all so being at home just sounds more fun. Well now his father has sent him off to the coldest, smallest village out in the middle of nowhere. Jesper needs to have sent out 6000 letters if he ever wants to leave and that will be difficult. For starts the village is in the middle of a civil war and a lot of the kids don’t know how to write a letter anyway. It may take some Christmas magic to get this mission completed.

Jesper goes through a fairly classic character arc here where at first he’s spoiled and mean but gradually learns how to be a better person. He stays in the mean phase for quite a long time though so if anything holds you back from liking him it would be that you may feel the arc took him a little too long. Even by the end he is being mean to one girl because she doesn’t speak English and he doesn’t want to take the time to understand her. For a while he is only focused on the letters so since she wasn’t going to help him get closer to his goal, he had no time for her. It was rather a cruel moment on his part.

He also makes some big mistakes near the end. Inevitably you know there will be a moment where he has to decide to stay in the village or leave with his father and it plays out pretty much the same way in every film but for once you’d like him to just say straight up that he’s not leaving. There are a whole lot of ways that he could have gotten himself out of the sticky situation but he didn’t go with them.

So he definitely has his share of issues. That said, Jesper does give us a lot of the fun comedic moments in the film so you wouldn’t want to miss out on that. He may not be my favorite character but the character arc is still a big staple of the film. The village absolutely needed someone to help out and even if his motives weren’t the best, he did get the job done. It’s like when you see someone doing a good deed online for clout. Yeah they may not have the best reason for helping out but if they actually are helping someone then I can overlook the motive.

Alva is one character who ended up being helped out a lot thanks to Jesper’s selfish actions. She had grown quite disillusioned with the world but when the kids started being eager to learn then she was finally able to find her purpose. Likewise Klaus wasn’t in a great spot in his life and this whole adventure helped to snap him out of it. Jesper definitely did help a lot of people even without meaning too. There was a really solid scene in the movie where we see exactly how much the village has changed. It was worlds different from back when they were always fighting.

The village really couldn’t get much worse from how it was when Jesper first got there. It’s hard to imagine just how sad the place would have been to live in for all of those years but at least now there is no need to worry about any of that. The film has a lot of good musical themes to help back the scenes up as well. Some fun modern titles and then more classic Christmas songs. It all helps to keep a lot of energy within the film and the fast pacing is one of its strengths.

The humor style here is usually about quick wit. Characters talk really quickly as they get the jokes in and usually they’ll already be telling another one while the first is ending. That’s the kind of humor style I like because nothing is dragged out. You either get the joke or you don’t. There are also a good amount of visual gags as well. The animation style here is fairly unique. The characters are all off model but in a stylistic way which is usually used to amp up the humor as the designs are actually referenced once or twice like when Jesper meets Klaus. It may not be a style that you would want to overuse but it’s always tough to look unique in this day and age so props for pulling that off.

I dare say the film almost didn’t need any antagonists. We do have two villain groups here (The ones always fighting) and they continue to get involved all the way to the end but I don’t think they added much. Yes they create a little drama at the end but it’s fairly brief. You could cut that part out and get the same effect by having Klaus or the main heroine walk into his officer and see his notes about getting the letters and leaving. It would have the same effect and I dare say that it would work a bit smoother. The villains were okay but just a bit forced.

Klaus has a good ending so things really work out quite nicely. The ending is important for all movies of course but it’s massively important for a feel good film like this one. You need to feel good or it’s just not going to go over well and would spoil the whole thing. So the ending here is very satisfying and caps off a very nice experience. This is a high quality film that is a lot of fun. I don’t expect you would have any significant issues with the film. It’s got a nice amount of polish and it’s the perfect time to watch this one.

Overall, Klaus is a fresh take on a classic tale. It’s a good amount of fun from start to finish with good character arcs and a fun cast. Jesper may take a little long to get with the program but the important thing is that he does by the end. The movie has a lot of humor throughout and it’s all executed really well. Seeing how the film incorporates each bit of the Santa mythos by the end is always fun. It tackles the Reindeers, the cookies, the naughty list, etc. It was really quite clever at smoothly incorporating them in. You would understand the references each time but it never felt forced.

Overall 7/10

A.I.C.O. -Incarnation Review

Posted on November 2, 2022 by dreager1

It’s time for another Sci-Fi show. There are quite a lot of these anime running around and this one really goes into the technical elements. Get ready for a lot of discussions on the burst, alien life forms, and cloning which can be pretty intense but at times it also means that the pacing can be a bit slow. This is a good title but another one where it takes the show a very long time to really get good. I don’t think it fully found its footing until near the end and the ending wasn’t ideal so while there is some replay value here, it won’t be near the top of the list.

So a while back there was an incident known as The Burst! A lot of people died in it and now some organisms known as Matter rule the area. They’re effectively mindless and touching it will result in your death unless you destroy the contaminated limb quickly. Now you need professionals just to get near it if you want to study the area or something like that. Our main character is a girl named Aiko and her family was seemingly murdered by matter but one day a guy named Yuya appears and says that this isn’t the case. They are still alive and Aiko needs to save them.

This guy is a bit shady though as he’s on the run from a mysterious military group and wants her to follow him without question. Aiko does want to save her family though so even though it means leaving her friends and old life behind, she follows him. Yuya and some other shady guys have enlisted a group of professionals who will guide them through the affected areas of the burst. At its center is presumably where Aiko’s mother and younger brother are. Once they save them then the day is saved….or is it? What does Yuya want out of this? Aiko figures she has no choice but to trust him….but this could be a mistake.

Now I would call that the basic plot but a lot of other things start to occur as the series goes on. I’ll go more into it in a minute but we have to answer the tough questions like if a clone is truly alive and what it means to sacrifice one. Do you sacrifice a town to save a kid who might be trapped within the Burst? Then you’ve got the government groups all fighting each other and a whole lot of chaos as outside governments want to weigh in on the conversation. I think the show could have tackled all of this in more interesting ways because there is a lot of cool stuff to discuss here but for the most part it is satisfied being more of a low key show that talks about it but mainly just from the main characters’ view. Extending this with another 10-12 episodes and bringing in more outside forces could have worked.

As far as the animation goes…it’s decent. I wouldn’t say it looks very good or anything like that but it’s not bad. It’s more that there aren’t a lot of good fight scenes because typically they’re just fighting the matter which is effectively mindless and can’t fight back beyond lunging at everyone so the fights aren’t super exciting. There are some episodes where you have the characters blasting the matter for the whole episode and yet you’re not excited because it isn’t a real opponent. Fortunately at the very end of the show we do get a real villain but it is very near to the end by that point.

As for the soundtrack, it’s not on the memorable side. The tunes within the episodes just don’t stand out and I wasn’t a big fan of the opening. It’s got to be one of the least exciting ones that I’ve heard in a while. The show is just not impressive on a technical sense so that means the actual story needs to hook you which it does not. This is starting to sound rather negative so I should say that what keeps this from being a bad show is that it does execute on some of the potential. While it does tend to drag out some elements and not take others to their full use, at least it is trying to tackle a bunch of Sci-Fi themes. Throw in an explosive climax (Even if the ending is underwhelming) and you’re really all set to at least get things interesting for the end. To it’s not the most engaging show out there and loses in most head to heads, however if you are looking for a decent Sci-Fi title to bring up then I would eventually mention this one. It’s still good enough where I could recommend it.

Now as for the characters, first up we have Aiko as the lead. I do think she’s a bit too trusting with the whole Yuya situation. She wants to save her family and that’s great but you still have to keep your guard up at all times or else you’re just going to walk into a trap. As the show goes on the mission appears to be riskier and riskier all the time. By the end Aiko learns a lot and makes a lot of good decisions. I do think she handled things maturely and did try to help out as best she could. Her being a bit naïve is her only bad trait, beyond that I liked her well enough as the main heroine.

She would actually contribute by firing the cannons and would disobey any order that told her to stand down. So Aiko did have some toughness to her and that was really important because if she was a passive main heroine then it would have been that much easier for the villains to take her down. As it played out this way, she was at least able to make decisions of her own and stayed in control of her destiny. Aiko definitely surpassed expectations here.

Unfortunately I could not say the same about Yuya. This guy starts off reasonably well as he’s very mysterious but you figure he’s got a good plan at the ready. You have to decide if you trust him the way that Aiko does or if this is all some kind of big mistake. Ultimately I did not agree with his plan at all and that is what ended up hurting him here. He is willing to make a whole lot of sacrifices and while the other characters get him to be more reasonable by the end, it doesn’t change what he was willing to do. You can’t trust him and he grew worse as the series went on.

One area where the show struggles is with the supporting cast though. Outside of Aiko and Yuya, the divers don’t really stand out. There are quite a few of them and you have the gruff leader, the hyper newcomer, etc but there isn’t much to them beyond that. One of these guys is Kazuki and he ends up liking Aiko from the start. It’s not a good idea to fall for the person you are escorting since this is supposed to be a mission where you stay neutral and everything. He definitely fails on that end.

I do give him credit for always having Aiko’s back though. He’s probably the only character in the series who doesn’t waver or get tempted to abandon her at any point. Yeah that’s because he likes her but isn’t that still a pretty good complement to his dedication regardless? When she falls into the cafe and asks for help he immediately tries to get her out of there while everyone else was still hesitating. That counts for something.

Unfortunately it’s not like he’s super strong or anything so ultimately he can’t stand in the way of the government but he tries his best. You figure that he’s doomed from the start too so you feel bad for him there. Maho and Daisuke are the two leaders of the diver operation so they have a lot of experience but they don’t tend to contribute a whole lot. As you watch the show you’ll see that they technically talk with the crew and make decisions but ultimately don’t change things up.

At least someone like Kaede may make her share of mistakes as she dives into the fights but she’s memorable because she gets a whole character arc about maybe being too impulsive. Her partner Haruka always takes the blame when this happens but it causes Kaede to really think about how she has been handling this situation. At the end of the day she doesn’t want to create more trouble and so she gets a bit more cautious as the show goes on. Haruka doesn’t really get an arc like this in comparison but at least this makes it easier on her as well.

Yoshihiko has his hands full with Kazuki but does as well as can be expected. He’s the more calm member of the duo so he usually has to end up being more of a boring character there but his advice isn’t wrong and in terms of pure skill he is probably better than Kazuki. Together these divers are good enough to blast away at the blobs and we’re told that they are the best in the business so even with their character flaws they make it work. Fighting in teams of 2 helps out with that I suppose.

Outside of the whole main plot with the heroes trying to save Aiko’s family we’ve also got a whole government conspiracy plotline going on as well. This isn’t quite as interesting as it could have been but I always appreciate seeing their take on things. The main character here is Akiko and her ongoing banter/feud with Susumu. They used to work together but now he’s on the rebel side with Yuyu while she works for the government. This leads to a lot of disagreements and subtle threats between the two. It’s always very subtle of course but you can’t help but think that Akiko actually would take Susumu down if she could.

I think what would help this plot a bit would be to have the characters actually talk things out a bit more. Typically how the conversation goes is she would ask him for details and after he gives the intel she hangs up on him. She’s very openly using him the whole time until the end where she decides to help but because of that there is no ideological battle or anything like that. I think that’s a missed opportunity because there is a whole lot you could do with that otherwise. She was a decent character though while Susumu is mainly forgettable.

The real standout character here is Kyosuke as the main villain. Basically he wants to save his daughter who is in a coma after the burst. He thinks that the answer to saving her lies within Aiko and that goes against Yuyu’s plan here so they are naturally at odds. It’s always a good idea to have the villain get a decent motive though and having him want to save his sister was an effective way to do that. He seems like a reasonable guy for the most part but as the show goes on he starts to go more and more off the deep end.

We even see how he used to function normally with how he had some friends and other doctors who had his back. Eventually they just weren’t able to do this anymore but it was nice to see because it makes sense that he would have some allied by this point. The premise makes it unlikely for everyone to have a happy ending but you are hoping that she will be able to pull through at least. Then thanks to Kyosuke we do have some more action by the end.

The climax still isn’t super exciting but at least it’s a bit different. Instead of all the blobs being mindless, now you have some being controlled by him and some by the daughter. Then you have Aiko controlling others as well so it all gets really crazy. The show’s ending is not very satisfying though which was another missed opportunity. So what I’m saying here is that the concept of the show was better than the execution. Giving us more monsters and such would have been great or give us more government meetings about what to do with the burst. This was a huge event that the show barely even bothers talking about except to nuke it all. I want to know more about the origins and how the other countries are taking this. It’s touched on but just barely.

Okay now I’m going to quickly talk about some of the more in depth parts of the show so skip the next 3 paragraphs if you haven’t seen it yet. Head out now because we’re starting fast:

So the big twist here is that Yuyu is trying to save the real Aiko who was captured by the monsters a while back and is used sort of like a core. He intends to sacrifice the cloned Aiko to bring the real one back to life. This touches on the classic theme of if a clone is truly alive or not. (The right answer is that the clone is alive so destroying it would be awful) As we’ve been with the clone Aiko the whole show we feel like she is alive and you would hope that he could see that but he doesn’t. Even up to the end he intends to destroy her until Kazuki knocks some sense into him. Of course by that point Aiko convinces herself to die for the original. It’s an interesting dynamic where both the clone and original would rather sacrifice themselves to save the original.

Clone Aiko looks a little bad at first though because she is fine with someone being sacrificed for a while but when the twist is that she will be the one sacrificed then she isn’t happy about the plan. I know she eventually comes around but it wasn’t the best look since it seemed to imply that she would be fine with someone else dying. It’s a good twist about the two Aikos though and the show has a good amount of foreshadowing for it. It’s easily one of the most interesting parts of the show and you know it must have been tough to be stuck within the Burst for so long without any way out. Likewise for the daughter who was in a coma but still conscious within the void all this time.

The show could be a little dark when you think about all of this but it’s not going for that angle. Now why did I not like the ending? Well, they save both Aikos which is great and what I was hoping for but they decide the family isn’t ready to know this and so one of them can never see the family again after the final goodbye. Cmon that doesn’t make sense to me, we’ve just survived a big sci-fi apocalypse. They can handle seeing two Aikos and the ending just feels unfair/forced. I didn’t buy that excuse and it just made the show forego what should have been a really happy ending.

If I could change one thing to improve the show rather dramatically it’s that I would cut out one episode of the heroes running through the mindless monsters and add it to the beginning. Have Aiko decide not to trust Yuyu at first and gradually she realizes that she wants to take a risk and goes off with him. That would help the pacing because part of what hurt the show is that the pacing died around the middle. You had multiple episodes of blasting away at the mindless ooze and it’s just not exciting. There’s action but how dangerous can these creatures really be? (Surprisingly they do pretty good at times)

After all in some ways the slice of life parts were better than the apocalyptic adventure which should never happen. I liked Aiko’s best friend even if she never appeared after the opening episode. The scenes of the characters talking and planning were better than when they were running through the endless labyrinth of monster zones. There’s even a blue gel creature that randomly shows up and at least you could wonder what it’s deal was. Meanwhile fighting the sludge monsters didn’t do anything for me.

Overall, A.I.C.O. Incarnation is a good show. While I had a laundry list of issues and weak points for the show, it shows just how strong the ideas and premise was. I saw a lot of potential that was left on the table and that’s what really made the show underwhelming for me. It didn’t look great on a technical level but could have still thrived without it. Unfortunately the writing and plot direction could not compensate enough for this. If you want to watch a Sci-Fi show though then this is a good one to check out because it’s short and it does touch on all those themes I mentioned. At least you can ponder them even if the show has no time for this.

Overall 6/10

Lost Song Review

Posted on October 16, 2022 by dreager1

The power of song is definitely not something that you would expect to be the ultimate weapon but this show has characters weaponize it which makes for a pretty interesting story. The show is held back a little bit by rather sub par animation and it feels fairly low budget but at the end of the day the story is good enough to keep this as a good anime. It certainly tricked me a bit on how good I thought one character would look though.

The series starts off by introducing us to a girl named Rin who has the Power of Song. Basically her lyrics can turn into tangible power and so her grandfather forbids her from using this technique. Rin doesn’t get why he won’t even explain his reasoning but mostly agrees but one day while in the forest she runs into a guy named Henry who was attacked by a lot of foes and so she uses her songs to heal him. Unfortunately the villains notice this and burn her village to the ground which destroys her grandfather, sister, and everyone living there. She must now get to the capital and achieve her dream of singing in the choir to at least honor their memories.

Meanwhile in the other plot, Princess Finis has the power of song as well. Unfortunately the army is determined to use this ability in order to win their war. Prince Ruto says he will destroy Henry, the man she loves if Finis does not agree to this. So Finis uses her power to destroy opposing forces and heal their allies but each time she sings, a part of her life is drained away. If she doesn’t stop soon then she will die but how can she get around this hostage situation?

I always like having dual main characters so that you can eventually see the two meet up in a climactic moment. That appeal is lessened a bit in this show since it’s not a full action but either way you still want to see them meet up. The show is rather low key for the most part but things change in episode 7 and then the show kicks it up to another level. That moment is so good that it single handily elevates the show and from there we get some time travel shenanigans and alternate timeline routes which is great. It gets complex like Kingdom Hearts with a lot to think about but it works out really well.

As mentioned, one weak point of the show is the animation though. Sometimes it feels like they pretty much ran out of animation and so characters will barely move and the fights leave a lot to be desired. This show doesn’t look very good even if it occasionally has some decent shots. One that looked pretty bad though was one character burning to death but he looks just fine and you would almost think that he was casually tanking it if not for yelling. With the fight scenes being no good as well there just isn’t much to catch your eye.

The soundtrack isn’t all that memorable aside from the Song of Mortality which is really on point. It is fun how characters will just break into song though. It feels like an old Disney cartoon in that sense with how out of the blue it is. You’re definitely not going to see it coming. The first time it happens it will take you by surprise but in a good way. If it was overdone then it wouldn’t be good but I’d say that it works out well enough.

The most annoying character in the show is definitely Prince Ruto. For starters, he’s your classic prince who is using Finis and Henry the whole time but they don’t mess with him because he’s the prince. I always thought that was an annoying plot because they should just take him out. I never like it when the hero just holds back because of their station or because they don’t want to cause an uproar. This guy is actively murdering Finis by forcing her to sing so all bets should be off and you just stop him. Likewise Finis could take him out and then his threats on Henry wouldn’t work anymore.

The show makes Finis and Henry look really bad on this note though. They know that the guy is super evil. He hasn’t been subtle in this with the threats and forcing Henry onto the front lines. Yet, when Corte tells them that they should escape, they look shocked. They’re absolutely flabbergasted when she starts talking about just how corrupt he is. Then later on Prince Ruto summons a bunch of guards and asks Henry to come with him to his tent. Henry suspects absolutely nothing and walks in there without a care in the world. It was one of the most bizarre scenes I’ve watched in a long time. It’s like the writers left a bunch of scenes on the drawing board to explain why he wouldn’t suspect the obvious villain. Something wasn’t right here.

I did like Henry well enough in the show and he was my favorite character until Finis reached in and snatched that title by the end. Henry’s a good guy who is a soldier and is willing to risk his very life to protect his friends. There’s just one problem I have with him aside from being super naive and being an awful tactician. He is really weak. This is what took me by surprise by the way. Henry loses a whole lot in this show. He starts off episode 1 by losing to the enemy fighters but I figured it was a fluke. From there he is easily kidnapped on multiple occasions, loses every fight to the villainous Bazra until someone else has to literally fly him into the guy, and he doesn’t get any solid wins in the show.

The rough part is the show acts as if this guy is a super strong prodigy fighter but we never see that. The show definitely made some questionable decisions and this had to be one of the big ones. Then the supporting cast is a big weak here. We have Doctor Weissen as the quirky scientist character but there’s not much to him. It’s great that he was able to invent some good items but at the end of the day I wouldn’t say that he did much. There are several allies who follow Rin in order to help her but two of them don’t really contribute.

They are Monica and Allu. Monica is a girl who falls asleep whenever she is in danger. Yes that’s her entire gimmick here and it’s not a good one. Then there is Allu who has the amusing gimmick or hitting her legs like a drum whenever she talks but beyond that doesn’t have a whole lot of character. I really think the show could have left these two behind and kept the core hero group a little smaller which would have worked out better.

Finis has one ally in Corte but unfortunately she isn’t a great strategist just like Henry. She figures she can poison Prince Ruto but keep in mind that the guy knows she can’t stand him since she works directly for Finis. So one night an attendant is bringing Prince Ruto a drink and Corte quickly grabs a poisonous one. Okay this is brilliant, switch them out and the attendant will bring Ruto the wrong one right? Wrong! Corte says she wants to bring it herself and that’s where the plan died. Why would Prince Ruto accept a drink from her now of all times? Then she’s not subtle in staring him down to the point where he asks why she is so interested in him drinking this wine. It’s clear that she doesn’t usually act like this and that’s too many mistakes to come back from. She meant well but handled this really badly.

I’d also say that Rin’s grandfather Talgia didn’t handle his side of things very well. He should have just told Rin that if she used her powers then the army would come to kidnap her since they are kidnapping all users of the power of song. That’s it, just give that quick explanation and at least the odds of Rin listening go up dramatically. By acting like he just didn’t like songs and not giving a reason, it made him look completely unreasonable.

Now lets talk about the characters who were a lot more on the solid side. First up is General Bazra who is actually a really solid villain. He also uses Finis in order to attack the other armies but is a lot more strategic about it. He isn’t just randomly being petty and super evil but is doing it strategically in order to win. He has his reservations about her and is always on guard but in general he does well. It helps that I gained respect for his fighting ability every time he beat Henry over and over again. That’s not easy after all but he made it look easy.

Then we have Rin’s friend Goodlight. She’s a travelling singer and can be a little selfish with how she doesn’t want to pay for her room but as the series goes on she is a nice character who helps the heroes out. She is always ready to fight which is a good thing and really comes in clutch. Her fighting abilities may not be enough to get them out of trouble most times but it is a good start and the kids would be in trouble without her.

Rin’s best friend here is Al and he’s not really my kind of character ordinarily but I thought he did a good job of holding it together. When he gets emotional he breaks off from the group so that they won’t notice and while his inventions aren’t very good at the start, he does contribute later on. He definitely had a rough path in the show but did about as good as you could reasonably expect him to without any super powers that he could use.

As for Rin, she’s a decent main character but definitely a lot less interesting than Finis. Rin wants to sing as it was her dream but the dream doesn’t really feel like a big deal compared to most. With her village burning down, you’d almost think that she would be on a quest for revenge or something like that. Maybe it’s for the best that she didn’t go that route but singing still feels like it would be really low on her list of priorities.

Her songs are quite strong though and it is fortunate that she is able to keep on singing without losing her life force the way that most do. Rin gets a lot of big moments as the series goes on. The way her character arc ends isn’t particularly satisfying but at the end she made the hard calls and was a trooper throughout. I just think there should have been more to her character. There’s not much you can say about her beyond the fact that Rin was a good person and that’s more of a statement than a whole personality.

Finally we’re up to Finis and I have a very high opinion on her character. Now she didn’t start out great. At first she is rather clumsy, naïve, and tends to get into trouble. She may be a royal but she doesn’t really know much of what is going on around her. She is super popular and everyone looks up to her but she isn’t really able to leverage this into political power because of her lack of experience.

So at the start it’s annoying because she lets the prince do whatever he wants with her. This all changes in episode 7 and from there on she becomes a great character. I’m now going to get into spoiler territory here so if you haven’t seen the show then you can skip the next 6 paragraphs but it involves timelines and such which is always way too much fun not to talk about. So again this is your last chance and I’ll see you at the ending.

In episode 7 Finis is tricked into murdering Henry via being burned to death. She wasn’t able to react quickly enough to dowse him with water but in part this is also because she ran out of songs. This was the last one that she could use and now she would die. At least…that’s what everyone had said and Finis believed this as well. Desperate times call for desperate measures though and she decides to sing the Song of Mortality. This is a song that will cause doom and devastation and Finis intentionally uses it on a global scale to try and destroy the world. It’s her last big revenge against everyone who has wronged her.

The whole plot of the show changes a bit from this. Finis succeeded in a sense but the song also granted her complete invincibility. Now she has to live through life over and over again and each time it ends she wakes up in a new timeline. Each timeline is similar to the first but different in some ways. In one of them Henry became a scholar for example. But no matter how many times she lives, dies, and repeats she can never be happy. It seems like it just never works out for her. So her plan is to find a timeline similar to the original one but this time she will sing the song while being powered by the choir and can destroy everything absolutely. This can break the chain of immortality and put her at peace.

The plan isn’t foolproof because it’s possible that her immortality just can’t be broken but it’s a plan at least and so I suppose you’ve got to go with that. She has to cling on to some kind of hope at this point because otherwise living out countless lives while never being able to age or die is rough. It doesn’t help that people are corrupt in every timeline and always try to attack her. She also found out that her abilities didn’t have a limit and now she can freely use them to attack others. She puts this to good use in working for the villains as a means to an end.

Therein lies the main twist which is that the timeline we’ve been following was not the original but the latest one which is why there were two of her. The original timeline failed a long time ago, it reminds me of Eden Zero where they do something similar. I do like the idea that for once the original timeline wasn’t the chosen one or anything like that. We’re in a whole new one at this point and in a sense it’s the final one if her plan doesn’t work. Finis makes for a great villain, much better than as a hero. She was a lot of fun to root for as a capable opponent for the heroes.

Realistically if she went all out then they would have been doomed from the jump so don’t expect a real fight. It’s more of a conversation with hope and all. Rin also gets a big role to play but that’s why the ending of the show is no good. It turns out Rin was a song and so she ends up dying at the end to bring Finis back to full power as her role was over. It’s not the ideal ending and you were hoping that she would just come back to life. Instead, she is reborn as a baby where she can now grow up. Of course this means that Al is out of luck since their romance isn’t going to happen now.

This is the only part of the loop that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Rin ended up being the baby in the timeline she came from that wouldn’t have been possible. Song or not, the age of the event wouldn’t have added up. Perhaps there is an essay somewhere to explain it but I definitely thought that was a little on the sketchy side. The show tried a little too hard to make everything interconnected with lots of twists and such there. This time they probably just should have let that one go.

Overall, Lost Song is a fun show. It starts off a bit quiet but the second half is on point. Episode 7 is the turning point of the show and where things get good. The Song of Mortality scene is easily the highlight of the whole anime and you won’t soon forget the music or the animation there. On the whole the show doesn’t look or sound like anything special but they put out all of the stops. The ending may not be very good but it’s also not awful so it’s not going to completely derail the show or anything like that. I’d recommend checking this show out if you want to see a fun music based title. It’s only 12 episodes so it won’t take long.

Overall 7/10

Revisions Review

Posted on October 13, 2022 by dreager1

Revisions should remind you a lot of Attack on Titan in several ways. The main character is big into revenge and the world is quite apocalyptic so it’s got those vibes right from the jump. A whole lot happens in the show and it’s got a satisfying ending so this makes for an impactful 12 episodes. There’s a whole lot left to look at for future seasons so hopefully we get a sequel at some point.

The show starts by introducing us to Daisuke who trains hard every day. The reason for this is that he was kidnapped as a child and saved by a mysterious lady named Milo. She told him to train because one day he would have to save everyone from an impending disaster. Many years have passed though and everyone thinks that Daisuke is crazy. Even his friends don’t have his back and prefer not to even think about that incident which disturbs Daisuke. It’s like they’re just trying to forget everything for some reason. Still, the prophecy comes true when the city is suddenly transported into a desolate future where monsters have invaded. Milo appears again and gives Daisuke a mech suit which he can use to fight the invaders off. Finally all of his training has paid off but Daisuke almost seems happy about this which concerns his friends. Their friendship will be tested as humanity tries to survive this crazy situation.

Right off the bat this is a great premise. For once it’s not just one character who has been isekai’d but the entire city. So you’ve got a bunch of people all trying to adapt to this crazy situation in the future going up against monsters and the like. It also gives us a rare opportunity to se the government’s reaction to this. Naturally some of them crack under the pressure immediately while others stay the course and do what they can to help. It’s a nice dynamic that we don’t see too often. Additionally there’s an alien race that is here claiming they can help but it all could be a trap. So there is a lot going on in every episode.

This show starts off strong right out of the gate with a very powerful first episode. While the show is usually not all that violent, it does go all out in the first episode as the monster shreds everyone to pieces. We get to see which characters are brave like Daisuke and which ones end up cracking like the teacher but more on her later on. I thought the show did a good job of not dwelling on the violence too much while still emphasizing the danger here. Daisuke was also a great character right out of the jump and the mystery about what Milo said at the beginning was also very interesting. I do think that the show doesn’t capitalize on every plot that it throws out there like one involving memories that I thought was going to be a big deal but it covers a lot in 12 episodes. I actually thought this was going to have to run for 24 for a minute there but they do tie just about everything up.

This is an example of higher quality CGI as well. It’s still CG so I won’t say that it’s perfect but we have some solid action scenes here and the character models are good. There are a lot of great still shots that really stand out as well. The soundtrack is also good. I wouldn’t call it great, but I liked a tune or two in there and the opening is definitely catchy. On a technical level the show doesn’t falter and since the story is already good that’s a double winner right there. The pacing is really good and the story is on point so there’s a lot to like here.

The show doesn’t have any real big negatives either. The cast is strong and there’s never a dull moment in the series. There isn’t much fanservice at all and the violence is manageable. This has to be one of the rare apocalyptic shows that doesn’t feel it has to shove numerous character deaths in your face every episode and have everything be grim dark. There are some intense scenes like someone being destroyed in their suit, a few characters get blown up and squashed but it’s usually not as graphic as you would expect. Things are dire for the heroes but they still keep their hope up all the time. Some characters can be annoying and others are traitors but at the end of the day part of the theme is about humanity relying on each other and strong community spirit which works out well.

As I mentioned earlier, I liked Daisuke a lot as the main character. People called him crazy and gave him a hard time but he didn’t let that stop him. He still trained each and every day and never lost sight of his goal. I really like that kind of dedication in a main character. It’s certainly not easy and yet he was still able to pull it off. I doubt very many characters would have that level of conviction. While the characters get worried about him, I do think that Daisuke had his head on straight the whole time. Of course he is excited to be saving lives and using his abilities but I never thought this turned into anything twisted or that he lost sight of the overall goal. Everyone was just really hard on him the whole time and I thought it was a bit much.

He even gets locked up at one point after saving people. A lot of times the characters really don’t appreciate the hero until after the fact, that’s for sure. Then you have Milo who has a big role here. So we get into a little time travel with her and it’s time for me to explain more of the plot. So with the city trapped in the future, the way to go back is to destroy the main core device at the villain’s base. The Revsions (villains) seem to have the tech to voluntarily bring people through but don’t want to. They claim that Milo’s group, the AHRV are the real villains here and want to keep humanity trapped in the future for their own gain. So they will bring some selective people back to the past and this is part of what gets the local government into a civil war. Some believe the revisions and others do not.

It gets a bit deeper from there but you’ve got the basic structure now. Milo is sent on different missions across the timestream in order to ensure humanity’s survival and that is what led her to the past to save Daisuke and the other kids. That past hasn’t happened yet for her though as she doesn’t jump until the future so she doesn’t know Daisuke and friends. It makes for an interesting dynamic where they are just complete strangers to her. Milo is a solid character for most of the show though. She’s a good ally and someone who can actually fight.

She tries to play nice with the government and just be helpful as needed but sometimes this does put her in a tough spot when they get corrupt. On the whole I was on her side a lot until the end where she really started to fall flat. My big issue with her is that she goes way too far in following orders. I figured she would have her big moment where she just tells off the group and does the heroic thing but it doesn’t happen. In fact, she was seemingly about to follow their last order which would have made her a huge villain.

That was disappointing and it did do a lot of lasting damage to her character. It’s difficult to recover from this and so by the end she became a bad character. She cracked under pressure is what it boils down to. She was someone that I thought all of the characters could trust and in the end that was not the case. I like my characters to be independent and break the rules when they have to. Someone who mindlessly obeys all orders will always falter when it counts.

Of course she still isn’t close to being one of the worst characters. For starts you have Yumiko who is a teacher that can’t handle the pressure at all and goes as far as to lock a bunch of students on the roof so that they can get eaten by one of the Revision monsters. Gee that’s real helpful…it would have been bad enough if she just ran off but locking them up there was awful. Then there’s also a brief moment where she seems to be making a pass at Daisuke who is one of her students just so that he can protect her. As the protector of humanity he would have saved her anyway but that was a really bad moment on her part.

We can’t forget about Mr. Muta either. He’s the mayor and the guy is the biggest coward in the series. He agrees to all demands by the Revisions without complaint and doesn’t seem to care about how obviously shady they are. From his perspective, as long as he lives he doesn’t care how many people they murder. It’s a shame that he had to be the leader since he gets the humans into a whole lot of trouble on multiple occasions. Things would have gone quite a bit smoother if he wasn’t involved that’s for sure.

So lets talk about the good government figures here. First up you have Izumi who is a very loyal cop who works for Ryohei and does a good job of watching over the kids. It’s a really dangerous task since she has no mech suit and any of the Revisions could destroy her in an instant. Unlike certain other characters Izumi doesn’t crack under this pressure though. Instead she continues to fight hard and does well within her role.

Another solid character is Ryohei and he’s the guy who really takes charge while everyone else is in a panic. He gets some good plans and actually listens to the other characters as a good leader should. Muta gives him a lot of issues throughout but once Ryohei is really on top then he does a good job of gripping the reins. He’s also one of the few characters who will give Daisuke the time of day. Ultimately he won’t always have the kid’s back but at least he tries from time to time.

As for the other kids, most of the time they tended to annoy me. First up is Gai who seems incredibly jealous of Daisuke for the most part. He really dislikes how Daisuke is always talking about being a hero and saving the day. Gai even tells Daisuke off after the lead saved his sister from almost being hit by a bike. Sure Daisuke may have been a little over the top but the fact that he is trying to protect everyone should really resonate as a positive thing for Gai. I don’t get why he is so upset the whole time. Tensions run even higher when Gai is chosen as the official leader of the mech unit over Daisuke.

Gai gets even more unreasonable from this point on to the point where he asks for Daisuke to be kept off the team for the final mission. He’d rather that the guy rots in jail even if it means they have one less mech suit to fight off an entire Revisions army. Gai lets his personal feelings cut through way too often. He has his share of hero moments but ultimately he’s a really annoying character that is hard to root for. I never thought he was a good choice as leader and most of the fights between the characters are directly his fault.

Lu is much more reasonable and one of the few characters who would stick up for Daisuke at times. She is careful not to rock the boat too much though and tends to not get involved in the discussions too often. By the end all of the kids have mech suits so she is able to help out in the fights too. I thought she did a good job and was one of the nicer characters, I don’t blame her for not speaking out more too. It would be tough to do when everyone is against Daisuke.

I was not really a fan of Marin though. She’s the classic shy character of the group and has a hard time voicing her feelings. She wants things to stay the same as they used to be with everyone being friends but that really has not worked out for her at all. The group is just drifting apart and there doesn’t seem to really be a way around that. She has her spotlight moments in the show but on the whole I wasn’t impressed.

Daisuke’s final friend is Keisaku and boy does he go through a lot. The guy got sent to the future along with his mother so that’s a massive red flag right off the bat. Parental figures tend to have a rough time in these things. Daisuke has his uncle warp with him too but the mother angle will naturally be a whole lot more personal. Keisaku is fairly quiet and also just follows Daisuke’s lead but that means he also bottles things up a lot and is under a lot of stress.

He goes to great lengths to try and find his mother when she is taken and of course most of the characters say this is reckless but Daisuke is eager to help. Again, Daisuke is leagues above the rest of the characters. So I’m with Keisaku on this because with Revision monsters running around there is no time for a slow and steady approach. She needs him as soon as possible after all. Even if he enters a fight that’s a little bigger than him, he doesn’t go down without swinging and doing damage of his own. He did his best to surpass his limits and cause as much damage as possible which I appreciated. He was a very solid character throughout.

Chiharu is the first main Revisions member to get a role. She tries to smooth out the negotiations with the humans and even takes a humanoid form in order to chat with them. That said, I’m not sure that her plan was very well thought out. Her current form at least has some superhuman abilities to it but ultimately she wants to switch to a fully mortal body. I guess everyone wants what they can’t have but it’s a downgrade and puts her in immediate danger. The way things work out for her certainly wasn’t great and in general I would say that the villains in this show were on the weaker side.

The next villain from the big 3 is Mukyu and she has the form of a little girl. She likes beating up on Nicholas while he’s in the teddy form but is more of a follower than a leader. Chiharu makes all of the tough calls and Mukyu just roots for her from the sideline. She doesn’t see the writing on the wall until it’s too late either. The only villain who really looked impressive was Nicholas, but perhaps too impressive. He has advanced gravity powers that can even render a mech suit helpless.

He seems like the most powerful members of the villains by far to the point where the heroes have no shot. I think the show should have absolutely toned that down a bit. It then goes even farther when he has powers that are basically cosmic in nature. Revisions may not be a realistic show but the power levels were very grounded throughout so this sort of broke the logic of the universe. There was just no way the heroes could realistically take this guy down and so the climax does get a bit iffy on the power levels. I would say that the writers got themselves into a hole here. He did make for a good villain though.

There is also a mysterious creature/robot hybrid that shows up once or twice and is pretty cool. This fighter is incredibly powerful and really gives the heroes more than they can handle when he appears. I liked his savage fighting style and for a while there I figured he wouldn’t even be able to get this plot wrapped up before the season ended. The show pulled it off though. This is perhaps another area where the villain was a little too strong but it did make for some good fights. Maybe the show should have just boosted up the heroes a bit to even things out. That would have solved the power level issues and also been cool visually.

I did mention there was one plot which didn’t seem to be resolved though and that involves their memories. So when Daisuke remembers the past and is always talking about being a hero, the rest of the characters aren’t so sure. So then they try to recall the past but all of them remember Milo saying completely different things. In one flashback she says to trust the others, in another she says not to trust anyone, in Daisuke’s she says to be a hero, etc. Nobody can agree on what she said and it’s like she talked to everyone at the same time with different conversations. I thought this was going to delve into multiple timelines or something but it’s never acknowledged or brought up again.

That means we’re probably supposed to just take it as the characters not remembering properly due to stress or something but it’s a bit hard for me to swallow. I wonder if the writers just forgot about this. In general the time travel is a key part of the show so you’d think it would be top of mind but at the same time there isn’t too much depth into the mechanics. Basically the patrol agents go into the past which directly effects the future but seems to not actually create a new timeline. It’s an interesting mix of sorts and I’d like the series to have explained how it works a bit more in depth here.

Agents of AHRV can apparently see multiple timelines at once due to their quantum brains which is another concept that isn’t really explored much. I can’t say that the time rules here make a lot of sense but it does give the writers a lot of freedom to do whatever they want. This is especially crucial in the climax of the show when one character is messing around with multiple points of time at once. It’s a pretty interesting group of scenes for sure and I like the Sci-Fi concepts that mess with your head a bit. I’m sure if needed you could make it all work out with a long thesis and with more time I’d like to do that, but either way it’s an enjoyable scene. Again it stacks the deck too much against the heroes but lets not dwell on that.

The series leaves room for a sequel with how it ends and that’s always a good thing. It would be interesting to see how this all plays out because none of the groups seem all that trustworthy. AHRV is clearly one of those really shady groups that believes any sacrifice is worth it if it will save humanity. The issue is that they have absolutely no scruples as a result and will do whatever they feel is necessary. Probably not the most trustworthy group to have your back right? Of course they’re still better than the Revisions who are basically using sacrifices to power their human bodies.

If they do a sequel, I could see Milo being the only returning character. Have her assist a different timeline with a new temporal problem and that could be the format for the series as it goes on. I think that could be a good focus but it’ll be tough to have a main character as good as Daisuke was. It’s hard to have lightning strike twice like that. As for the villains, we’ll see if they try to go for a bit of gray again. At the end of the day the Revisions were basically victims of how things turned out. They just ended up taking thing way too far in their attempt at revenge and equalizing things. I don’t blame them for not trusting the heroes since the humans are often super corrupt and all but they’re no better with how they sacrifice people all the time. I think the Revisions as a concept were interesting and how they became Revisions but it never went to the point where I found them to be too sympathetic.

There is even the twist about the Revisions monsters which as I mentioned you will see coming right from the jump, but it doesn’t land nearly as hard as this twist in other titles because we’re not given as much reason to doubt if destroying them is still the right thing to do. Based on how it is presented here, you still need to take them out at the end of the day so it doesn’t really change anything as far as the objectives go. I assume in a sequel the whole concept of them would be gone though. Only way I could see them returning is if it turns out that the future didn’t actually change yet and a big plague is still coming. Then the heroes have to try and change the future again and I guess the theme would be that the future is impossible to change and they have to try and beat it somehow.

Overall, Revisions is a great show and I would recommend it. It does a good job of showing characters under stress and bringing some fresh perspectives into the apocalyptic future. You will probably see some of the twists coming while others you will not and it’s just a really solid sci-fi show. It’s got a nice blend of action and fun sci-fi concepts to play around with so you can enjoy it as a fan of many different genres.

Overall 8/10

ID-0 Review

Posted on October 13, 2022 by dreager1

Now this is an anime that I had never heard of before. It’s a Sci-fi title with a fairly original premise and it’s very unique. You couldn’t say that this one was emulating any other anime on the block. That said, while being original is good and all, I can see why this one didn’t ultimately get a second season. It starts off very slow and while it builds up by the end, it’s a little too late for this one to have really hit it big. I liked it well enough, but it does have its share of issues.

The show starts off by explaining that we are in the distant future and now one of the big ways to get rich is to farm the material known as Orichalt. It’s sort of like the great gold rush has returned, only now everyone is working on getting this material. You’ve got the government who is going after this as well as local pirates and such. In order to extract this material from deep space, people can put their soul inside of an I-Robot and control it virtually. It’s very safe since if the robot dies you just get booted back to your body at least. That’s true for most characters at least.

The main character here is Maya and she is still a student but has big aspirations for the future. Unfortunately there is a hitch to this plan as she has a run in with local pirates and is now framed for working with them to steal the Orichalt. Until she clears her name she will have to work with this group but gradually sees that they really aren’t bad people. Why was she even framed in the first place? She will have to work through these answers while also getting to know her new friends who are actually permanent I-Machines meaning that their bodies are long gone. This means that if they die, there is no coming back from that.

So lets tackle what I would consider to be the weak points of the show first. One is the main thing you may have guessed from the poster and that is that the animation isn’t very good. This is a CGI show and one that is very rough around the edges. While I’m not the biggest supporter of CGI, I can say that there are high end shows, medium, and lower tier. This one would be in the fairly low side as it’s all just very janky and at times the movement is off. Not to say there are no cuts here as the show does turn it up for the climax but for around 9-10 episodes it just doesn’t feel very natural.

A visual issue isn’t one that would hurt the series all that much on a score level though. While it may prevent it from taking the next stage, it wouldn’t make it a 4 or anything like that though. Animation is more like the frosting on top of the foundation so if your foundation is good then you’ll be okay. The other weak part I’d say is the story which is a bit more serious. It feels like the show is a bit more aimless for the first half and things don’t kick off for a while.

It’s hard to really care about the hunt for Orichalt. There is some tension between the government and the main pirates group regarding the hunt and how the government monopolizes this. The pirates basically hunt for it because they need the funds and there aren’t many other options. They also do like the thrill of the hunt as well. The show doesn’t pause on the ethics of this too much as it’s fairly direct. Think of these guys like the Strawhat Pirates. They’re on the wrong side of the law but at least they don’t hurt anybody and so it’s still easy to root for them. We’re not really given much of a downside to the pirates going hunting with how much Orichalt there seems to be everywhere.

The characters are fairly dry though and so you need something from the story to really get the cast going. Once the climax does start, then things get more interesting. We actually get a fairly deep dive into personas, the soul, and how it all intersects. One character has amnesia for example and part of the show is about finding out more about his past and the inevitable dilemma of what he’ll do if his personality was different back then. We’ll get into that more later but the show does get really interesting by the end, I just wish it did that a bit sooner.

The soundtrack is also virtually nonexistent for the most part. I wouldn’t say I remember any tunes and the theme song wasn’t my favorite. It wasn’t catchy and there wasn’t a whole lot of animation in it. So the show just feels low budget on all fronts and that spills into the experience a bit. Now lets talk about the characters. Maya is the main heroine here and she’s a nice enough person. There isn’t much to her beyond this and she goes through a fairly standard character arc of not trusting these pirates until she finally sees what nice people they are. By the end she is ready to take more risks and is more confident in her navigational skills.

Ultimately there isn’t a ton for her to do beyond that especially as Ido seems to be just as good as her in this area. Often times he will come up with a plan and just ask her to confirm it or vice versa. It helps the group be doubly sure about everything but for the most part she doesn’t change much of what would have happened without her. She is here to give them a bit of an emotional push though as it can be easy to think of everything scientifically after being a robot for so long. Maya is still more on the emotional side. It’s annoying when she gets held hostage but in the end she’s okay, there’s just not much to her.

Ido is the best character though and does his best to hold up the show. So he has lost his memory which is why he calls himself Ido. (Get it? ID 0? As in his Identification is zero because he doesn’t know who he is) Ido doesn’t exist on any record and he doesn’t have an ID code like every other ID machine. He wants to find the truth to his past but without any hint at all it seems like a lost cause and so he’s really thrown himself into his work, almost to a dangerous degree. He takes a lot of risks because he just doesn’t think it matters all that much.

This all changes when a little girl named Alice appears and then we start to slowly get more info on the plot. I’ll touch on that second half a bit later. Going on with the character introductions, Alice is a little kid so there’s not a whole lot that she can do. She seems to possibly have some kind of powers and at the very least everyone is after her but there’s not a whole lot that she can do about it. Alice is mainly a tool for the plot but barely a character for most of this.

Grayman is the leader of the pirates and is always ready to make the tough calls. He’s a rather stern guy who is nice deep down but is careful not to get too entangled in the emotions from the crew. His role is a bit smaller than you’d expect but he does a good job of leading the troops. Rick is the comic relief member of the group although his backstory is rather tragic. The guy is always joking around and he can go really fast which comes in handy by the climax. It would be nice if he could dial down the flirting a bit though. They really need this guy to focus instead of trying to make moves all the time! Plus as a giant robot who will never have a human body again, it feels like he may be out of luck there. It’s good that he stays optimistic though.

Karla is a character who was good for the most part. She was a reasonable member of the crew who kept everyone grounded and was good at strategy. Unfortunately I lost a ton of respect for her later on. Lets just say that she made a deal which was awful and took huge risks with very limited upside. It leads to Ido’s best scene in the series but it wasn’t something that was going to help her win back any points. She really lost all likability from this point on and got off rather easy. This is not the kind of character that you want to have at your back.

Clair probably gets the smallest role in the group. As Grayman’s daughter she helps to be a mediator when he is arguing with someone. She’s always calm and nice about everything but there just isn’t much of a role for her here. I expect she would have done more in season 2. Amanza joins the crew later on in the show and she was a fun addition. She can fight which is always appreciated and has some good plans. The group would have had a much tougher time without her and she starts to contribute right away.

There’s a character in here called Sam Taylor who only appears for one episode but was a great character. Not only did he nearly outsmart the whole crew but he was talking really tough considering that he is only a human while they’re in giant mech suits. That takes a whole lot of confidence in your own abilities and he pulled this off with ease. On a separate note, the heroes do need to work on keeping their guards up though. They seem to drop their guards immediately when they let people in which is something that Amanza took advantage of as well. This guy just left a big impact and I remember him partially because this was the first really solid moment in the show that made me take notice.

Okay so now I’m going to talk about the meat of the plot from episodes 9-12 so big spoilers will ensue from here on out. Skip to the last paragraph if you haven’t seen the show yet and don’t want to know about this yet. This is when the series got really interesting and ambitious. If you ask me this should have been the focus from the start and that would have been perfect. So Ido used to be a guy named Kain. He was actually a rather extreme scientist back in the day and was willing to do anything to save his daughter Alice. This led into him working with the Orichalt and messing with its very essence which was related to a dark god. So Addams stopped Kain by sealing him away and Kain effectively died but was such a genius that he was able to transfer to an I-Robot but lost his memories.

Then we had Kain mass cloned and one of his clones got big ideas to replace him and assume his identity. It gets more convoluted by then and it’s all very interesting. This is the kind of story I like to see because while it can be tough to follow, it lends itself well to a lot of theory crafting. It’s just interesting to ponder all of the possibilities and the show gives you a lot of ammo for this because there is a ton of dialogue and flashbacks in these episodes.

It’s also interesting how Kain an Addams basically reversed positions after the memory erasure. Now Addams is the extremist while Kain has mellowed out and is trying to find a solution for everybody. I actually thought Addams was a really good villain throughout this. He is absolutely a villain of course but the objectives were sound here and you could absolutely see why he was going with the old plan. The situation was tricky enough where saving everyone seemed impossible so the idea was to guarantee a few rather than risking everyone.

At the end of the show the government has to decide if they trust Ido’s gamble to use the last of the Orichalt to possibly save everyone or everyone will die, or go with Addam’s plan which guarantees survival for a group but will definitely doom the others. Always a tough decision but I tend to go with the group of either everyone lives or everyone dies. It’s an equal playing field and no time for regrets since everyone will be dead anyway.

I haven’t even touched on this yet but with the dark god, basically he needs to reabsorb Alice to be complete and it’s why those dark crystals are constantly chasing her and attacking the heroes. It’s like a living version of Orichalt but interestingly his weakness is to weaponize actual Orichalt and stop him. Of course the ship can only carry so much of it and it’s like shooting money at the guy so that’s not unlimited either. It’s an interesting concept going on here.

Although I wouldn’t say it’s the most visually interesting plot. You can only see the heroes blasting away as pixelated objects for so long. The objects can’t even fight back per say, but touching them is bad and they can crush you with sheer numbers. It’s like fighting a never ending blob of pure matter which is certainly dangerous in space since if you’re caught, that’s it. It just doesn’t make for particularly interesting action scenes.

We do get some real mecha fights near the end though. Addams has his own mech suit of course and Ido is able to have a proper fight there. We also got an excellent scene where Ido was seemingly cornered but then moved with incredible speed and took out quite a few fighters. That was one of the best animated cuts in the show and likewise for the fight with Addams. It felt like they saved up a lot of budget to spend on the end and they delivered there.

The ending is fairly definitive so it’s the kind of show that did not need a sequel anyway although it still would have been pretty fun. I think if they built on the ending well enough then season 2 would have been stronger. You could mostly avoid the slow start because we already know the characters and that way you could jump right into the story. While I didn’t think the cast was very impressive, maybe they would be able to look better in a high stakes environment.

With the whole clones angle, there could always be another one out there so you could use that as a plot thread and of course even if the dark god is gone, you could have other pirate groups that are less friendly show up. Just don’t focus on the actual mining too much, that’s the part that won’t be as interesting even if we do understand that it’s super dangerous. One wrong move and you could die while getting the Orichalt but that would be such an anti climactic way to go out.

Overall, ID-0 is a unique show that just suffers from a very slow start and a fairly low budget. Once we get to the meat of the plot then things get very interesting. As long as you enjoy the discussions and what they’re talking about then you’ll love the climax. If you don’t tend to like all of the sci-fi jargon then you may not enjoy it quite as much but we also have a lot more action so that should help balance things out. I can also finally say that I’ve seen a whole anime about space miners so that’s nice bragging rights. The show is very short either at 12 episodes so I’d still say it’s worth a shot if you’re looking for another sci-fi show. Think of this more like an adventure like Star Trek as opposed to an action and you’ll be going in with the right mindset.

Overall 6/10

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