Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea Review

Posted on October 28, 2022 by dreager1

At long last, it’s time to dive in to the aquatic romance drama from a while back. This is quite possibly the most dramatic romance that I’ve seen to date. Just about every episode seems to end with a massive cliffhanger like someone confessing or being (literally) swept away before they can do something. It’s a very interesting show so you’ll stay engaged the whole time and ends up being a solid show for that reason. That said, while there are a lot of romances in the show, I can’t say that I could get behind most of them, but the main romance was on point which is what counts right?

The show introduces us to a world very much like ours except for one big difference, a huge chunk of people live underwater. This started ages ago and so there is a divide between those who live underwater and those who live on the surface. They don’t tend to get along very well but at least the kids are allowed to attend school on the surface. They have Ena which effectively lets them breath and interact as normal but they must stay hydrated by swimming or splashing water on themselves every once in a while or they could dry out and die. It certainly makes everyday life a little trickier.

The surface dwellers are all completely normal while the underwater factions get a bit more supernatural too. See, they serve the Sea God and he is represented by a familiar/high priest who accepts their tokens and free meals in exchange for keeping things peaceful. You get the feeling that the surface dwellers wouldn’t buy into that as much. There is a whole world out there but the series mainly sticks to one village. I found myself wondering how the rest of the planet handles the situations and disasters that come into play later on in the series. I guess there wasn’t much time for that but it would have been interesting.

Now lets get to the main story. We follow a group of kids from underwater, Hikari, Manaka, Chisaki, and Kaname and they’ve always been a very close knit group. They would like for things to stay the same always but with their having to go to school on the surface and growing up that seems impossible. They’re all changing and there is no way to turn the clock back now. They can at least do one last big project together which is to create a Lady Ojoshi doll to celebrate the annual Ofunehiki festival. This used to be an annual thing before there became a lot of bad blood between the two factions of humans.

Having kids from the sea and surface work on this together could help to finally heal the divide but it won’t be easy because Hikari isn’t particularly happy about this. He started off on the wrong foot with the surface characters because a guy named Tsumugu is among them and Hikari’s childhood friend Manaka seems to like him. This is where all of the drama starts. The chain of events seems to be: Kaname likes Chisaki who likes Hikari who likes Manaka who likes Tsumugu. With everyone chasing after someone else, that means almost nobody can have a happy ending here.

This is a very character driven show of course so you can expect a whole lot of development for all of the characters here. The romances are a big factor in the show as well so I’ll talk about each one and how they stack up. The cast is at a decent size here as well but fortunately the series is over 20 episodes as 13 probably wouldn’t have been enough to really handle this one. As it is, you feel like the show did a good job of covering a whole lot of ground and even changing things up with a big time skip midway through the series.

The animation is fairly good here. I wouldn’t call it anything super special but as this isn’t an action series they don’t have to worry about big fight scenes or anything. The backgrounds with the water are on point and that’s what counts. The visuals underwater can be good as well and I liked the ice effects. The show could have a bit of fanservice at times but for the most part stays away from that so you could still call this a classier romance story. Falling into that trap would have been bad for the show.

The soundtrack is really good. In this case the second ending particularly jumps out as it plays early for a few of the cliffhangers and works really well. Whenever you hear the song picking up you know that something big is about to happen. It’s suitably emotional and works really well for the show. I’ve listened to it quite a few times and the normal tunes during the episodes are good enough as well. They really serve to enhance the scenes.

Where the show does particularly well is with the drama. The show takes itself really seriously and it works here. Typically I am more of a comedic romance fan if I have to watch something that’s part romance but everything here was dialed up to 11 and it just worked. The show doesn’t do anything halfway and the drama kept me interested so it succeeded. I’d say that’s a credit to the writing as well as to the strong character cast here. You wouldn’t be able to pull off a romantic drama otherwise which is why the genre is so tough to get right. There are some really annoying characters here but that tends to be intentional. The pacing is good as well but now lets go into the characters in more depth.

Lets talk about Hikari first. As the main character he will be getting a ton of screen time here. Initially he is very headstrong and always getting into fights as he lets his jealousy over Manaka get the best of him time and time again. He’s quick to fight and constantly gets into a lot of trouble. It’s hard to root for him at this point in time because he’s just causing so much damage. It’s also the wrong approach to try and win Manaka over as well.

After the time skip he’s a lot more mature and a much improved character. He definitely did good by that point and does his best to keep everyone on track. He really grew into the leadership role out of the main group of friends and by the end I liked him a good amount. Then you have his best friend Kaname who is much more of a quiet figure. He tends to keep his feelings to himself most of the time and just enjoys being part of the gang. Gradually as he sees everyone else making moves he starts to make his.

Unfortunately while Hikari went up as the series went on, Kaname kept on going down. He started out well as the smart member of the group who always had Hikari’s back but then things started to get rough when he would do whatever it took in order to try and win out in the battle of relationships. This would cause him to put Hikari on the spot and try to stir up trouble. He went way too far at different points and there was no going back for that. It’s quite possibly why his ending isn’t quite as bright as some of the others.

Manaka is the fun heroine here who always has a good time and sees the bright side of things. She’s always a fun character and also gets quite a bit of development as the series goes to the end. I don’t think she stuck out as much as the other main characters as her personality is a bit more simple and she doesn’t have as many big character moments to have to fight through. Still, she is always at the center of things so you will see a lot of her.

Chisaki is Manaka’s best friend but of course she likes Hikari so that makes things a bit tricky. Chisaki is always trying to be the very mature member of the group so in a lot of ways she is like Kaname there. That said, the more you bottle stuff up, the tougher it can be and so she makes the situation a lot tougher on herself. She just isn’t able to voice her feelings as easily as Hikari can. Chisaki certainly has her big moments here and of the 4 characters I would say that she gets the most tragic scenes. You feel worse for her than the other 3 in part because you really know that she’s doomed from the start while for the others you figure that they could possibly have a shot at some point.

Tsumugu is the guy from the land who is here to help out and he at least treats the ocean kids well from the start. You can’t say that about a lot of the other kids who were around. He knows a good amount about the ocean children which makes sense as the series goes on. I like that he has a cool head on his shoulders and doesn’t panic a ton the way the other characters do. Tsumugu calculates every move and then tries to find the ideal outcome. He takes this approach to romance as well and this makes for an interesting approach. I liked him well enough. He may have broken up the main dynamic of the main 4 which left them a little sore but he always meant well and he doesn’t tend to make any big mistakes.

Then we have Miuna and she starts out as a girl who causes a lot of little problems for the heroes but after the time skip she becomes a fairly big character. She likes Hikari but of course that’s a problematic crush there and so you can’t root for her and have to hope that she can get over it. Miuna feels doomed from the start due to this and while the whole thing is sad, you just need her to move on. Beyond that plot she was much improved after the time skip to the point where she could now think up plans to help with the festival and do her best to pull her weight.

Her friend Sayu gets a bit less of a role. She starts studying really hard though and does her best to be a bit of a genius. She tends to also be good at being direct with the other characters like Miuna and isn’t quick to get too discouraged or depressed. Her romance may have some of the least development to it but at the end of the day she has spent years on improving herself and putting herself in the best possible position to land her guy. I appreciate the effort into that.

Lord Uroko is an annoying character though and now he’s someone that you won’t be rooting for. He likes to remind everyone that he is just a scale of the sea god so he can’t do much but he rarely helps the heroes out. He tends to feel like a pawn all the way through but one who makes the wrong decisions. Attacking the heroes was already uncalled for with the ice but then helping with the tidal waves? This guy’s a villain if you ask me and I’m glad that Hikari didn’t give the guy a second thought as he went to save Manaka. Sometimes you just have to go out there and save lives even if the cryptic characters claim that it’ll just make things worse. You can’t listen to them.

Akari is a reasonable character for the most part. She was one of the first to rebel from the village since she liked someone from the surface world. I did not approve of the relationship but I agreed with getting out of the village. Those guys could be a little too dicey at times. She did her best to still mend the relationships with everyone in the meantime. Akari ended up being a very memorable supporting character. More so than her husband Itaru. I was less sold on him and he didn’t feel quite as pro active as she was. He was mostly just around but not doing much of anything.

Atsushi doesn’t have much of a role in the story at all except to be someone who likes Miuna but doesn’t seem to stand a chance. As soon as he appears you figure that he’ll get to do something though. I never really liked him much but his role is so small that you won’t really think about him anyway. Now Tomoru was a very annoying character. This guy is the chief of the village and yet he can never be bothered to actually help Hikari out. Worse than that is the fact that he will get in the way. The old traditions are just too important to him and he takes forever to act. He really needed to have Hikari’s back no matter what and helping out earlier could have also solved some of the issues they all faced ahead of time. By not doing that he just put them in an even deeper hole. He has got to be one of the worst characters in the show.

Now lets talk about the final pairings for the show and I’ll tell you which one(s) worked and which did not. This will of course have spoilers to skip the next 7 paragraphs if you haven’t seen the show yet. This is really about romance and drama so if you know all of the final pairing then it’ll probably take away from your enjoyment a bit. So yeah this is your big warning on skipping it because it’s time to dive right in!

First up we have Hikari + Manaka as the first final pair and this one you will probably have guessed. They’re the main two and the show is about all of the obstacles that get in their way. Hikari openly liked her from the start but it always seemed like Manaka liked Tsumugu so things weren’t working out. It turns out that she didn’t like him in that way and just appreciated having him as a good friend. Some scenes may make you think twice about that but at most I suppose you can write it off as her having a very temporary crush on him when they first met. That said, this is easily the strongest romance of the series.

It’s a romance where both of them were the top option for each other and that’s a good thing. There were no rebounds here and Hikari did try real hard for her. He got rejected several times for moving a bit too quickly and I’m all about slowing things down so that wasn’t bad of Manaka. Ultimately I could give this romance a thumbs up because a lot of time passed and so the relationship developed naturally rather than being rushed. It was a good romance all things considered.

Next up is Chisaki + Tsumugu and this one is definitely a lot weaker. Keep in mind that Chisaki has liked Hikari all this time. Tsumugu wasn’t even on her radar until deeper into the series once the time skip happened and Hikari wasn’t a realistic option anymore. Even then she didn’t want to get together with him because she figured that it just wouldn’t be right but by the end she “settled” for him. Second choices never really work and so naturally this one’s going to get the thumbs down. It’s still a rebound even if it’s slightly less so compared to some of the other romances coming up.

After those two is Kaname + Sayu and this is probably the weakest romance. Kaname was desperately after Chisaki and even played dirty with the other characters to knock Hikari out of the running but in the end she just never ended up liking him in that way. He still likes her by the end of the series and only gives Sayu the hope that one day he will like her. On one hand the pairing doesn’t actually happen yet so perhaps it never will but if it does then it wouldn’t work as another rebound. This romance also gets less screen time than most of the others. At the end of the day you felt like Kaname was probably going to lose out and as the show went on that is what happened. Playing dirty never pays.

Then we’ve got Miuna + Atsushi as another romance that takes a nosedive here. Atsushi likes Miuna a lot but the guy barely gets 10 minutes of screen time in the show. Miuna is flat out not interested because she likes Hikari. Glad that ship didn’t work out but Satoru would be a very obvious rebound if it happens. As with the last ship it was only starting to be set up and hadn’t actually gone through so that gives me a little leeway to not give it the full thumbs down yet.

Akari + Itaru is next up and this one is definitely a full thumbs down. Look, Itaru’s wife died fairly recent given how young their daughter Miuna still is and yet he is now going out with the wife’s best friend Akari? It’s easy to see why Miuna was so upset. It’s an unspoken rule that you never go out with friends and so that was a bad idea. It really didn’t make either character look good and while it’s supposed to be a very emotional moment, I wasn’t buying into it. This was a romance that didn’t really need to happen.

Finally we have the Lady Ojoshi and the Sea God. We get to learn more about this one and it just makes the Sea God look really petty and awful. He broke up a perfectly happy couple on a whim and while Ojoshi tried to be happy it was clear that this was not the case. By this point it’s not like you could take things back and so their relationship ends rather tragically. The Sea God then decides to be petty for the rest of his existence and becomes another one of the worst characters here so that’s definitely not a good look for him. In the end the only romance I actually thought was good was the main one with Hikari and Manaka. The rest of the romances lose out but the show is written well so it’s still a fun adventure.

I’ve mentioned quite a bit about how the writing was good for this show and it’s important because as a non action title you’re really counting on the writing and characters to be on point. Without them there is no way the show could have succeeded. It also made some really bold choices like having the big time skip midway through. Part of why that one was interesting was because only some characters aged as the ones in a coma did not. So that really served to change the dynamics up. A few years may not be too crazy and you could make it work in a relationship but at the same time it is still tough because you know that you missed out on several years of your life.

A lot of the show is about The Ofunehiki festival and creating a Lady Ojoshi. To be honest this tends to be the most dull part of the show relatively speaking as you’re more interested in the interactions than the actual play. It is used to great effect though as tragedies always happen around this festival. You can see why a lot of people don’t even want to do it anymore even if the adults handle it in a very petty way. Hikari really has to handle most of it which is a bad look for the grown ups. The time skip was a good way to show how things have changed for a lot of the characters and not as much for others. It’s almost like having two completely different shows rolled into one. Hikari is still stuck in his season 1 mode but everyone else has changed so much. Even the attitude when doing the festival again was very different for the adults and kids who had aged up. There was a lot less petty fighting and everything this time around as people saw the very real danger from last time but also the bonds that came through it. Still would have been interesting to see more of the outside world and I wonder if the threat was as apocalyptic as Lord Uroko made it out to be. Something tells me that he exaggerated a bit. This wasn’t the point of the show but it still made me interested.

Hikari also gets the best hype moments of the series like when he saved Manaka from the sea god’s trap. The shoe is not generally going for hype but it does have its moments. Due to the drama there will also be times during the show where everyone makes a mistake or two. I don’t think there is a single character here that acted perfectly but at least most of them are likable so it’s cool. Some moments may feel like they’re just here for drama but it just works out. Each episode has some kind of big development and that’s key for this kind of show. There is also some humor but for the most part this is a very serious show. A happy one as well as a sad one but you’re just along for the ride. It’s so eventful you may be tempted to say that it isn’t a slice of life but I think that’s still appropriate.

Overall, A Lull in the Sea is a good how. It’s a very emotional tale about romance and characters having to grow up. They all deal with a lot of drama and issues that pop up because no matter how hard they try, they aren’t able to keep the old dynamics the way they once were. It’s just not possible and the show is really about accepting change. While it may sound a little too dramatic on its surface, the show does a good job of keeping you invested. It just dives in 100% to being a super dramatic show and that really works out. I would recommend this if a drama sounds appealing to you. Then you won’t find ones much better than this title.

Overall 7/10

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

Earthchild Review

Posted on October 15, 2022 by dreager1

I remember all the hype this series got when it was first announced. It was going to be the next big title, a really great superhero story that was also part romance between an ordinary guy and the super talented heroine. Well, the series swerved that premise right off the bat in chapter 1 and it felt like the series never recovered. Now I got to binge the whole series so my experience may be different than someone reading weekly but I can get why the route the series ended up taking wasn’t as exciting. It was fairly different than I had expected even knowing the twist. It’s a good series but I can definitely see why it was cancelled, you can only bait and switch the audience so many times.

The series starts off by introducing us to Reisuke who is a super average guy in every way. That’s his complete character personality but then one day he is saved by a superhero. She quickly erases his memory and goes back to saving the world but for some reason he is still able to remember her. Why? Because he has fallen in love! The power of love is able to negate the memory erasure and so after trying again the heroine decides to let Reisuke hang out with her. Her name is Kareri and she’s never been able to open up to anyone before. Since her life is so crazy and full of danger, being with someone ordinary like Reisuke puts her at peace. They decide to have a kid together…and then she dies stopping a meteor from hitting the Earth. Now Reisuke will have to raise their child by himself.

So of course this is the big switch that nobody wanted. Everyone was hoping for a fun story about a couple raising their kid and a lot of adventures from there. It would almost be something like Spy X Family at least on the surface level but very different with the superhero angle. Well, that’s out the window and chapter 1 ends with Reisuke realizing that he now holds the worlds future in his hands. The writing for the series is awful like this whole line when his wife just died but we’ll go into that later.

The series quickly changes gears because a chapter or two later we find out that Kareri is still alive but trapped in stone. So yeah the plot’s changing again. The actual plot of the series is that Reisuke has to find a way to get into space and save her but to do this, he will have to teach Mamoru (Who is still a baby) how to control his powers. So lets get into the lore here. Kareri was an “EarthChild” which is why she had superpowers. This just randomly happens to people of Earth where occasionally they’ll be born with powers.

How occasionally is “occasionally?” well, there have only been a small handful of these types in the last few decades. There can only be one primary Earthchild at a time and they are given their powers to save the Earth from a world ending threat. It is then their destiny to die against this threat and the power moves onto someone else. If the user somehow survives past their allotted time then they will naturally start to lose their powers as the next user gets it. So one of the themes here is people telling Reisuke not to save his wife since he will be defying destiny. If he listened to them then he would be an F rank main character so fortunately he doesn’t.

The series is 27 chapters long and this plot takes close to 20 chapters. We then get a final arc that’s about 5 chapters long but lets talk about this saga some more because I think it’s probably where the series doomed itself. This is already far too many plot changes. Usually you need to have some kind of focus before you get into the next arcs but the author didn’t really seem to plan things out all that much.

It also feels like the chapters go in circles a whole lot. For example, at one point Reisuke takes their kid Mamoru over to space to save Kareri but then he realizes that Mamoru wouldn’t recognize her in the stone. So they head back to Earth and waste some time talking to her parents where we get a whole subplot about how their memories were removed. We then head back into space again and here’s where the ping pong starts. Reisuke goes outside to save her but…he fails so he has to head back to the station. Then he goes out to save her again and succeeds, but dies in the process as she wakes up. Then she risks her life to save him and fails so she goes back to the space station. Then she goes back out again to stop a new thread and Reisuke comes back to life and helps her out.

It’s a really long sequence of repetitive steps before the arc is over. A lot of these were for big cliffhangers to make you think that one of them really was going to die but that never felt very likely. Why introduce the twist of her still being alive if she was going to die right? What took us past chapter 20 should have only lasted until around chapter 10-15. There was just a lot of unnecessary steps here like failing the mission only to try again in 2 chapters and succeed this time. There wasn’t a lot of point to that.

After a while I thought that the series would just end with this arc. I’m glad it didn’t since the final arc is a bit more exciting. I never became a big fan of any of the characters either. There was one that I liked at least but for the most part the others could be annoying a lot of the time and it’s hard to succeed without great characters. Lets start off with the main character Reisuke.

His gimmick of being totally ordinary gets old fast but the guy also whines a whole lot. He cries in almost every chapter since he wishes that he could be stronger and often makes the wrong call like putting power inhibitors on his kid before realizing how crazy that is. Then he runs towards death on multiple occasions before being pulled back by the other characters who remind him that dying would be bad for his kid. They have to remind him of this numerous times. The reason Reisuke takes these risks is he gives up on controlling Mamoru’s powers and wants his kid to have fun even if it means dying in the process. That’s just not a very good option.

Almost every chapter will have him giving up before someone gives him a speech about how great he is and then he gets up to get the job done. I figure this must be what it’s like for people who watch CW’s The Flash. Yeah Reisuke ends up saving the day in the end but a lot of the time it’s cheesy. Remember that time he actually died? There is never an explanation given for how he is able to come back to life aside from his love for his family.

Apparently this love is so strong that even death cannot claim him which is…..not a great explanation. Everyone also respects this guy a whole lot considering how he’s always breaking rules and causing a fuss. One character who slaps him ends up thinking of him as a very mature hero by the end. Nobody can stay mad at this guy. I like some of his qualities though. I like that he’s determined to save his wife no matter what. I think he can come up with good ideas sometimes (Rarely) and that he is determined.

These are all great qualities but the way he executes them can be awful. There are several times he basically decides to go no a suicide mission because he figures it’s better than doing nothing so the other characters have to remind him that it is worse than doing nothing since he has a kid to look after. Eventually they talk him down and come up with a real plan each time. There’s also one moment where he takes off his helmet in space and it’s supposed to be an emotional moment but you just wonder how he’s not dead yet.

The author is actually bold enough to claim that taking your helmet off in deep space may not destroy you and cited some scientific paper about a one time exception that supposedly happened in real life. I didn’t bother googling that so maybe it’s legit but I have my doubts. The romance here is also really cringe at times but I’ll get into that more later. Needless to say, I wasn’t very impressed by this guy.

Then we have Kareri as the main heroine. I think she could have been a lot cooler as well. Her character arc is fairly classic as she used to be super cold and efficient at her job but after meeting Reisuke and falling in love with him her whole life started to revolve around him. She couldn’t help but talk about him nonstop, she was a lot nicer while being a hero and she gets flustered whenever someone brings him up. Pretty much all her scenes with Reisuke have one of them closing their eyes in embarrassment or covering their eyes because they can’t handle this.

I think we should have seen more of Kareri’s actual missions before getting together with Reisuke. That’s probably the riskiest thing about having them get together in the very first chapter. Yes there are some time skips so it’s not like they immediately got married but since it’s off screen it feels like we didn’t get to know the cold version of her. So when we learn about how she used to be a lot more serious through exposition and the occasional flashback, it doesn’t hit as hard.

Her powers are also kept rather vague. Basically all Earthchildren have the same ability which is telekinesis and it seems to be just strong enough to accomplish whatever goal they need to. It just seems inconsistent as sometimes she is really strong and other times she isn’t. It’s clear that this isn’t an action series with how none of this is thought through all that much. I guess just roll with it as it’s not too important and it’s not like there are any traditional supervillains either.

The main supporting character from the government is Yuma and he’s an agent of Waste. (Yes that’s the main organization’s name so Reisuke can’t help but make a pun about Trash later on) Their job is to watch over the Earthchild and ensure that he/she is able to complete the mission. In the first chapter this guy is ruthless and almost insanely aggressive as he starts to force Reisuke to lose his memories and is tossing out insults left and right.

Then Reisuke gives a speech and he immediately switches up to being more of a soft spoken nice guy. It’s such a dramatic shift that even Reisuke comments on this. For the rest of the series Yuma is actually the encouraging member who tells Reisuke to believe in his marriage and drive to save Kareri. He’s all on board for helping people and making Waste less of a shady organization. It’s all just such a drastic character change that they should have removed his role in the first chapter. We even get a flashback from his POV for chapter 1 later to do some damage control but I wasn’t buying it.

There are two next door neighbors from Waste in Todoroki and Kasuya but even though they’re introduced as if they will become big characters, they don’t get to do much. Maybe they would have been bigger if the series had kept on going. They seem decent enough even if they’re trying to get Reisuke to give up his kid as well. These guys are definitely relentless that’s for sure.

Now for the first character who is actually rather solid we have Albert. His gimmick is that he thinks the world is one big adventure and that makes him the main character of the story. He believes that he is the true main character but to a lesser extent everyone else is the main character of their stories. He has some very minor abilities which were used as a big cliffhanger but after that he never looks as impressive with them again. He is mainly here to give Reisuke some encouragement when he’s feeling down but at least he is actually convincing with it.

I can actually get behind this guy and root for him. He wants to help people out too but isn’t as wishy washy as Reisuke is. Albert also has the saddest character backstory in the series by far. I have to say that his brother was also a terrific character and I would say he’s the best in the series if we count him. The guy only appears for a chapter after all but he was great. That’s definitely the right way to complete your mission and defy destiny.

After that we’re introduced to Maromi who is on the space station and she’s a super whiny character. She literally writes in a journal about how Earthchildren are unfair because they can do whatever they want and she has to work hard to succeed. Maromi has barely met any of them and is still so jealous the whole time. You can understand why she is jealous to an extent but it’s a terrible first impression when that is her whole focus for her first chapter. Couldn’t she have had some positive character traits to balance that out? She never ended up growing on me but don’t worry, she gives Reisuke a pep talk later on as well.

That about wraps up the character cast from that arc. So lets head onto the final arc now which is really rushed but it’s interesting. So of course Reisuke saved Kareri and they were now at peace so we get a time skip of around 6 years. Mamoru is older now and can use his powers. They’ve also figured out that Reisuke is an amplifier with the power of love. Physical contact with his family makes their powers stronger and likewise the farther away he is, the weaker they get. So he has to be around at all times and the 3 of them stop threats together. One person doesn’t like this though…Earth.

Earth appeared earlier briefly but the planet takes the form of a high school girl as its avatar. Basically she explains to Reisuke that he’s getting in the way since she controls destiny and Kareri was supposed to die. This is the scene where she keeps murdering him but he keeps reviving because of the power of love. So she returns for vengeance and is once again trying to murder him. The climax of the series is the 3 characters fighting Earth but they have to be careful because if they destroy Earth….well they’ll have destroyed Earth.

That said, she’s shown to be far above them so that’s not much of an option anyway. She can cause natural disasters on a whim and her avatar is for visual purposes but can’t really be hurt anyway. Earth also points out that she has time on her side and can attack 24/7 for years and years until they die from exhaustion. Realistically I don’t see them being able to fight for more than 3 hours nonstop with how much power she had. Of course this leads to the power of love and the climax is…a family meeting at the dinner table with Earth invited.

It’s a very cheesy ending but I was expecting it since the series is all about sitting down and chatting. Earth was also shown to be way too powerful to be stopped. Regardless I did like the arc because it was interesting to have Earth itself as the main villain. I thought that she was a very fun villain. The whole thing is a bit contrived though because you can’t tell me that she couldn’t have found a way to bump Reisuke off during those 6 years. Just have a big piece of hail randomly fall down while he’s walking one day or an Earthquake happen to murder him. There are plenty of opportunities given how many powers she has.

I also like how the lollipop she is always eating is a mini version of Earth. Just a stylistic thing that’s kind of fun. So that’s the series in a nutshell and as you can see I had quite a few problems with it. It also has that annoying tendency to have someone narrate from the future the whole time. The narrator is confirmed early on to be their kid Mamoru. You can see why this is bad right? It confirms that he survives the first arc since he’s talking from the future and we even flashback to the future a few times. From the way the dialogue goes we can also confirm that at least the father dies but with just a little bit of analysis you can see that they both lived.

Considering that the “will they live?” question is supposed to be massive with the constant cliffhangers, this removes all of the tension. I never liked future narration as a concept and it doesn’t work at all here. The other big negative as I mentioned is that the romance isn’t written well at all. It’s one of those romances that is super over the top with both characters constantly blushing because the other one said something so bold. Wouldn’t they get used to it after a while? No, every time they talk you’ll have Reisuke hiding his face in embarrassment because he said his true feelings or Kareri saying something nice and then blushing right away.

I might be spoiled from reading/watching romances that are a lot more subtle and feel more realistic but this one could be hard to read with those pages. There was no variety either, it’s the same gags for all of their dates and character moments. A lot of the dialogue didn’t make sense either like Kareri asking Reisuke if he was embarrassed to have her as a girlfriend when he panicked at her using her powers in the open. No…he just pointed out that people don’t know she has powers so that could cause an issue. It’s like she jumped to a really crazy conclusion there.

The writing in general is bad though. Like I mentioned earlier, in chapter 1 right after she seemingly dies, Reisuke has this inner monologue where he is stressed because now he has to raise the kid on his own and this kid is the future of humanity! Is this really what you would be thinking of right away? It’s a little bold to come to that conclusion too. There are too many speeches here and Reisuke is such an annoying main character even though he should be good. The series goes in circles a whole lot during the first arc and all of this add up to the series being cancelled early.

So, what should it have done to avoid being cancelled? Well, right off the bat I would say that they shouldn’t have killed Kareri off in the first chapter. That just destroys the premise and makes no sense. If you’re going to do that, do it much later in the story so we can see the dynamic first. If you have to bump her off though, rescue her by chapter 10. Cut out the visit to the parents and training the baby at the abandoned beach. We go right to a plan to save her with the other Earthchild and then we jump to the time skip with Earth’s revenge. Fast forward after that and Waste can be the main villains as they try to weaponize the fighters.

You could then jump into their shady history of speeding kids up from the age of 1 to 11 and all of that other stuff. It would make the series a bit more fast paced and cut right to the action. It wouldn’t resolve the writing issue as you would just need another writer for that but I think it could have captured people’s attention more. Now this probably sounds like a brutal review with all the shots I’m taking here but I wouldn’t call this a bad manga still. It’s basically a 6 on the large scale.

The reason for that is that it’s still an interesting manga and an easy read. I blasted through the whole series in one day. Well, it’s only 27 chapters so that’s not super impressive but still it was enticing enough for me to keep going. It also helps that the art is really solid. There are the occasional moments where there’s a small mistake or a character is off model but for the most part I was quite impressed. This looks more like a veteran manga than a new one.

While this wouldn’t fit the bill as an action manga since there aren’t a lot of fights, it can still be a good adventure. I liked a lot of the concepts that were brought in like Earth which could have gone into more interesting things had the series kept on going. Death’s waiting room is also an intriguing concept although it probably brings more problems than fixes when you really think about it. There would have to be more of a plot twist about Reisuke for me to ever accept how he kept defying death like that.

One thing that also earns it points is how the series is very anti-destiny. Every time the Earth talks about destiny or other characters do, Reisuke just keeps yelling that he’ll defy destiny and all of that. He never takes no for an answer and keeps on fighting until his family can have a happy ending. That’s always the right approach to me because someone talking about destiny shouldn’t deter you at all. Call their bluff and keep on fighting, it’s the only way to go!

Overall, Earthchild was definitely very different than I imagined. If it ever bothered to stick to the main setup of the two parents raising their superpowered kid then this could have actually been solid. The series just got a little too ambitious before immediately backpedaling and then being caught in a circle. I don’t think I’ve seen a manga so unsure of what to do before but maybe that’s part of what keeps you reading. You’re just wondering how long they can possibly stick this out for. Personally I was expecting the rescue to take up the whole series by the end. The script is also so cheesy that you may get a few chuckles in there at times. I absolutely see why it was cancelled but reading it as a mini series, it’s a good read. I’d recommend this if you’re looking for a fun sci-fi romance to check out. Just don’t read it for the actual romance but instead for the emotional journey of seeing how far Reisuke will go to save his wife.

Overall 6/10

My Dream is Yours Review

Posted on October 8, 2022 by dreager1

Doris Day returns but this movie is considerably weaker than the other two. The romance is really bad here and while the movie has some decent moments as you’d expect from any comedy, it doesn’t land nearly as well as the other two. You’ll walk away from this film feeling like it seriously did not reach any of the potential that it could have had.

The movie starts with Doug being betrayed by Gary. See, Doug was that music star’s manager and got Gary to be one of the biggest hits in the country. The problem is that Gary now believes that he doesn’t need Doug anymore and drops him like a hat. Doug swears revenge but ultimately loses his job and has to start from scratch. That’s when he runs into a girl named Martha who has a solid singing voice. Doug is confident that he can use her to get his revenge but the problem is that Martha falls for Gary. How can Doug still turn this into a win?

I have quite a few issues with this film but the first is the whole romance with Gary. While Doug could act coy about how the entire schism with Gary started, Martha still knows enough to tell that he’s not a good guy. He acts hostile to Doug the entire time and always acts like Martha is the only person in the room. Gary is incredibly arrogant and full of himself. I just don’t get how she fell for him from the start.

The romance gets worse and worse as Gary’s bad attitude is exposed and he’s blacklisted from the entire industry. Almost literally nobody likes him and people don’t want to hire him for anything anymore. He becomes an alcoholic and just vanishes. Well, even then Martha is still writing him letters and going after the guy. Now here’s the thing, there’s nothing wrong with her not falling for Doug. He’s a great guy who helps her out a lot. He got her rich and really changed her life for the better but gratitude shouldn’t mean that you have to fall in love with that guy.

I’d totally be cool with her saying no to his confession and staying as friends. It’s rough for Doug but that’s just how it goes and it’s not like he did all of this with that in mind. Initially it was to get back at Gary and then after that he just genuinely wanted to help her out. Doug took his chance and asked her out and it didn’t work. It’s actually a bold move by the film and I’m cool with it but then we have Martha still going after Gary and it’s rather annoying.

Doug still wants to help Martha so in the end he gets Gary back on his feet and sets them up together. Very selfless behavior but the whole time Gary is acting like a jerk to both of them and straight up tells Martha to retire since he’ll be the breadwinner of the family. Only at this exaggerated moment does Martha finally realize that he’s no good…and then she grabs the rebound and slam dunks the ball back into the Doug basket. They get together and it’s probably one of the most blatant rebounds that I’ve seen in a long while.

Martha made it clear that Gary was the guy for her and she couldn’t return Doug’s feelings but now she is ready to be with him because Gary is a jerk? That’s just unacceptable and it’s the kind of romance that doesn’t feel real. Of course Doug is thrilled since it all feels nice to him but are the feelings really real? It’s something that he’ll have to think about in the back of his mind and that’s where things get a little spooky for him. It’s not a romance that I can get behind though and it does really sour the film.

If you cut out all of the scenes of her chasing after Gary then things would be better. Honestly I would remove that subplot completely because I still don’t see how she could fall for him given the circumstances. The guy never seemed like a good person so it’s not like the ending was particularly shocking. I also thought the film could have really had an interesting angle with Doug just realizing that they would always just be friends instead. The movie had a good foundation but blew it.

I also thought that while the film showed how hard it can be to break into the industry, that part could be a bit long. We spend ages with Doug trying to get Martha gigs at various places. These moments led to a lot of fun gags as well but the longer this went on, the more it felt even more personal when she went with Gary. The best gag in the movie has to be when Doug is trying to downplay Gary the whole time but it turns out that he was talking to the janitor and not the director. That was a great twist and I really liked the writing there because there was a lot of good wordplay thrown in for the insults. That was handled really well.

One of the guys that they have to try and impress is Felix because he basically owns the main music station and you need him on your side. Unfortunately he also happens to be one of the most annoying characters in the whole film. He is even more scatter brained than the characters that the actor usually plays and can’t focus on anything. He’s always just getting in the way and by the end he may as well just be another antagonist. He isn’t willing to give Martha a fair shot at all.

Martha also lags behind the previous heroines not only for the Gary stuff but because she doesn’t really seem prepared to go all out in order to complete her dreams. One scene that was iffy was when she was going to throw it all away if she couldn’t bring her son with her. She really would have had no time to raise him while auditioning and it’s not like she could drop him off at day care. Still, it was difficult to convince her and she was absolutely just going to give up. Then she also decides to perform at a very seedy bar even while overhearing a lot of the criminal behavior that the owner engages in. It’s clear that things won’t end well for her here but she goes through with it anyway before being saved by the main guy. Her decision making skills were very questionable throughout the movie.

Overall, In the end while the movie does get some laughs, it could also be a bit mean spirited at times. I felt like Gary got off way too easy and so in the end the movie isn’t nearly as good as it could and should have been. I wasn’t really impressed here and maybe it doesn’t help that I saw this one right after two other comedy films that were way better. Either way you will want to take a pass on this one. It’s not really bad or anything so you could always check it out if you really want something light to watch but you could do way better within the genre.

Overall 5/10

It’s a Great Feeling Review

Posted on October 8, 2022 by dreager1

Time for another Doris Day adventure. This time we get to have two guys fighting over her as a lot of wacky shenanigans ensue. The banter tends to be the high point of the film while the actual plot can often be on the weaker side. The movie still makes for a fun watch cover to cover though even if the ending isn’t very satisfying when you think about it. It’s just a pleasant film that is easy to watch at any time.

The movie starts with everybody deciding to turn down being in a movie because Jack will be starring in it. He’s the most disliked actor in Hollywood and evidently he had to work quite hard to get that reputation. He constantly lies and is rather full of himself. That’ a really bad combination right from the jump and his only hope is to at least try to get Dennis to co-star in the film. Then at least he will have one big name with him but how to do it?

Well, Jack decides to lie to Judy, a girl who aspires to be an actress one day into guilt tripping Dennis into the role. This plot is poorly conceived from the start and goes sideways so with no other options, he’s forced to actually hire Judy and this at least gets Dennis on board as well since they have both fallen madly in love with her. They now have to fight amongst each other to see who can make her famous first and the true test will be convincing the director, Trent to sign her on. This won’t be easy since he likes to discover his own talent but they aim to have her appear wherever he goes.

Thing is, as hard as you try to make someone the next big star, it won’t always work. If anything it may even be a little forced if you’re always trying to throw her into the spotlight when it should be someone else’s turn. That’s exactly the issue that starts to pop up here. One of the side gags here is that Trent starts to think he’s going crazy because of how she appears everywhere. Judy tries to do too much to impress him and is always slamming her eyelashes together and making faces at him.

It’s a shame since she could have had a shot if she played things normally but even Jack and Dennis didn’t notice so I suppose I can’t blame her for that. It just wasn’t her moment to shine this time. By the time Trent is ready to make his move it’s just too late. The guy didn’t even seem bad, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, every time.

As for Judy, the pressure was just a bit too much for her. At least she was very dedicated to the cause but after a while there was just too many obstacles in her way. She could only be jerked around by the two guys so many times before it was time to get out of there. She handled their endless flirting rather well and took it all in stride. If she could have handled everything with that level of calmness then she definitely would have been okay in the end.

Then we have Jack who is a rather weak character. His reputation is actually deserved which already hurts him from the jump. It would be one thing if he was misunderstood or something but he actually was lying to Judy and was trying to manipulate everyone else. So you can’t really feel bad for him because evidently this isn’t his first rodeo and people started to find that out the hard way. He’ll do whatever it takes to get to the top and so nobody could end up trusting him. Judy succeeding would turn out to be a success for him as well so that also made it difficult when you had to decide if you were rooting for them or not.

In comparison Dennis was a lot better. He actually had a good conscience which is why the guilt trip worked in the first place and after that he did his best to actually help Judy. He mostly stuck around to make sure Jack didn’t try any funny business either. Now this was a quality character. Sure, I can’t say that I was rooting for him in the romance angle since Judy kept saying that she had a boyfriend back home but at least he wasn’t trying to take advantage of her. He would shoot his shot and when it was an air ball then he would keep it moving. If both guys had been annoying that would have really been unfortunate for her.

So this is a good movie but I would say it’s not quite as funny as the last one. There isn’t a big payoff/climax like the other one either. This movie instead ends on a rather quiet note with a decent gag but one that isn’t laugh out loud funny either. I wasn’t a big fan of it personally but I will say that at least I’m glad that Judy didn’t go for a rebound or anything like that. Technically she was already with this guy off screen so it’s good that she kept it up. Falling for someone at Hollywood isn’t a good idea and any excuse would have still been unable to get away from the fact that it would have been a rebound. So we don’t want any of that!

At least we get to see Jack and Dennis fighting a lot which is always fun. I like how they aren’t even subtle about fighting over Judy right in front of her. Dennis might shove Jack down a hill so they’re alone and in another moment he invites her to a game right in front of the other guy. They aren’t holding back at all and it’s all super petty but it just works out really well as a result. That’s the kind of dynamic I have a lot of fun with.

Overall, It’s a Great Feeling is a fun movie but it almost feels like there isn’t a climax. The whole ting is building up to the two guys trying to get Judy noticed by the director so that she can become a big movie star. You’re expecting her to appear in a big movie by the end or something where the whole journey has its big moment. Then she can head home or something but instead it just keeps going until she sort of gives up and we get to the ending. It all feels bit sudden and not super fulfilling. The rest of the movie is fun enough to keep it going but it doesn’t stick the landing as well as you’d hope.

Overall 7/10

Romance on the High Seas Review

Posted on October 8, 2022 by dreager1

It’s time for a movie about how the lack of trust in a relationship can really get you in trouble. After all, no relationship can exist without trust, it’s just not going to work because the endless cycle of suspicions and all will just keep you trapped. This movie is a fun comedic look at how things could play out and I’d say that it works well. The cast of characters is fairly small but you’ve got a lot of dynamics here.

The movie starts with Elvira having to cancel yet another trip because her husband Michael couldn’t make it again. At this point it’s enough of a running gag where the store even knows her. Elvira is disturbed when she sees that Michael has hired a young, flirty receptionist and decides to test his mettle. She’ll pretend to go on the cruise alone and will hire a stand-in (Georgia) to take her place and keep up the act. She’ll then watch her husband from the building next door to see if he cheats on her or makes any kind of mistake. She’s going to catch him and then…..well that would be sad for her but she’ll feel validated.

Meanwhile Michael is suspicious because at the last second he was able to cancel the work plans but when he offered to go on the cruise, Elvira said that it was too late and she had to go by herself. The whole thing was odd so he hires a detective (Peter) to go on the cruise in his place and spy on Elvira. See if she gets up to any trouble and then report back to him right away. If he catches her in the act then it’ll really wreck his day but he’ll know once and for all that his suspicions were correct. In both cases the main characters have to hope that they are wrong but just don’t have enough trust in each other to not have to attempt this in the first place.

It’s a fun plot that will definitely inspire a lot of shenanigans to be occurring on the ship. Georgia has never been on a cruise before and is typically not very well off so this is all a blast to her. She tries her best to live up to Elvira’s image but the rich lady left her so many instructions that it will be difficult to follow them all. At the end of the day Georgia is more of a free spirit and just wants to have a lot of fun. When she runs into Peter, the two of them hit it off but the tough part for her is that her cover is that of a married woman so she can’t really pursue this.

At first I would say that she doesn’t even realize that he likes her like that, it takes a bit for this to be settled. I thought Georgia was a fun heroine. She could have definitely done more to keep her cover though as resisting a romance for a little while on a cruise isn’t all that hard. She’s certainly earning enough money to just have fun by herself if you ask me. Still, Georgia means well and is one of the more entertaining characters here.

As for Peter, well the whole thing is actually a lot worse on his side. See, he actually thinks that Georgia is Elvira and yet he’s still making a play. At first it is just to test her which is dubious in itself but at least he’s not trying to go further than that. Once he actually does like her and start to make some moves then that’s really dicey since she is “married” as far as he knows. So the romance itself is one that I couldn’t root for in the slightest and it’s not a good look for him either.

The first rule of being this kind of detective is not to get involved with your client. No romances or anything like that because it’s just a conflict of interest. So he failed right out of the gate there. As a character he’s nice enough but he’s definitely not the best at his job. He’s very lucky that things tend to work out in his favor because he could have really been in a jam.

Then we have one really random character in Oscar who doesn’t add a ton to the dynamic. I’m convinced that he was just added to make things more chaotic. In which case….that’s a good idea! The character himself may not be great but the more misunderstandings the better for a film like this. The poor guy is madly in love with Georgia but you know that he is doomed right from the start. Almost every line is him feeling sorry for himself or directly confessing to Georgia but she writes it off as a joke. While it’s played for laughs, that has to be one of your worst fears when speaking out your true feelings.

The other person just laughing it up or joking with you has to be a downer. At least Oscar never lets it get him down though. Then for the main two, Elvira and Michael don’t get to do a whole lot here after the opening scenes. They’re okay but not nearly as interesting so it’s probably for the best that they were dumped to the side. Elvira certainly started this with her big scheme but Michael is also to blame for hiring that receptionist who was quite shady. That lady wasn’t exactly subtle with the flirting or in how rude she was to Elvira. That alone should have gotten her dismissed and if I was Elvira I would have insisted on it.

For the most part the humor in the film is on point which is what makes this a solid watch. The only gag that thought dragged on way too much was when Peter and Oscar get drunk at the bar. They keep on trying to drink their beers but another drunk steals it. This scene goes on for ages until it finally ends and was just stretched out too much. There are a few songs in here but fortunately they don’t take up too much time. I wouldn’t say any of the songs were great or anything but surprisingly Peter probably had the best one here. It was the most outrageous which ended up making it memorable and I got a decent chuckle out of that.

Overall, Romance on the High Seas is a good film. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and has a good amount of laughs for everyone. The characters are solid and the writing is good as well. The film has a whole lot of build up to everyone finally meeting each other and makes the most of it with the climax. I haven’t seen a climax that crazy in quite a long while and it really executes everything on point. If the climax had faltered then it would have certainly hurt the movie so I’m glad that everything worked out ideally. I’d recommend checking this one if you want to watch a comedy with some romance. The romance itself is weak but comedy is the main genre anyway so you’re all set there.

Overall 7/10

Picnic Review

Posted on October 1, 2022 by dreager1

This film is one of those titles where it’s a little hard to feel bad for the main guy at times because he keeps making the situation more and more difficult for himself. If he had just been upfront with everyone then the film probably wouldn’t have even had much of a dilemma. Still, in the end that’s not the tactic that the guy decided to use and it ended up costing him quite a bit. This can be a decent drama film but probably not one that you will be finding to be too memorable.

The movie starts off with Hal heading over to a small town. He is penniless once again as things just don’t work out for him but he doesn’t want anyone to know it so he makes up stories about being rich or coming here on a vacation. The train driver doesn’t buy this for a minute but couldn’t care less anyway. The real trouble starts once Hal gets into the town and he asks his old friend Alan for a job. Alan’s a good guy and is willing to help but becomes less enthusiastic once Hal starts making up stories about being a big shot or Alan really wanting him to work at this job. Hal also starts attracting quite a few ladies at the village and now everything’s going crazy. What can he do?

So the first thing Hal could have done would have been to just tell things straight. He fell on hard times and Alan is doing him a favor. Don’t hide those facts, especially when Alan is right there. Hal really pushes his luck in just about every scene and the lies aren’t even that convincing so you know that they are going to fall all around him at any moment. The whole film is really just watching the world around him slowly burn as a result.

He shouldn’t deserve all of the blame though as the other characters could have handled things better as well. In particular I thought Rosemary got off way too easily. She basically tries to cheat with Hal because she wants some excitement and when he isn’t too keen on the idea she causes a huge scene and puts him on a spot. This destroyed what was left of his reputation and completed Alan’s decision to turn against him.

I wouldn’t say Alan was great either here. I can see why he was upset about Hal lying the whole time and that’s understandable but then towards the end it almost feels like he is being easily manipulated by Rosemary’s big scene. Like that was the tipping point when I would have changed that to a different scene. By the end he’s definitely not ready to be all that reasonable anymore.

The main heroine here would be Madge as she always had the best chance from the 3 ladies. She likes Hal well enough but I can see why some of the other characters are skeptical and warn her not to pursue him. All that know about this guy is that he’s a chronic liar who gets into a lot of trouble and doesn’t seem reliable in the slightest. Keep in mind that he just got into town and by the end of the movie he’s already being chased out of it. Is this really the guy you want to pin your entire future on? It seems a little reckless at best and flat out irresponsible at worst. I can’t say that I was able to get behind the romance here at all.

It’s all much too quick and the ladies here seem too desperate. The guys get jealous but I guess their bonds just weren’t all that strong. One thing that holds Picnic back though is that there isn’t much of a plot beyond this. It’s really just about Hal showing up and causing a panic because of his lies and the fact that he was too good looking for the little town. That’s it, it’s not like there is a big villain (Rosemary is the closest to that) or a lot of twists and turns. The movie just goes on until it ends. It’s a low key drama with some romance.

To make that work you would likely need more humor or a very strong cast of characters. This film has neither of those. It’s not boring at least and goes by fairly quick but I wouldn’t call this a good movie. It’s just not quite strong enough to make it to that level. I wouldn’t say it has a lot of replay value either and I can’t think of what hook I would use to tell people to watch it. There isn’t a really big reason in particular to recommend this film to people. Even the picnic itself isn’t all that memorable.

The town sure does make it a big deal though. It’s like a whole festival just for hanging around outside and eating. The fact that a picnic is one of the biggest events in the town also shows you how there isn’t a lot to do here. You better enjoy the food because otherwise that would be game over. I think what would have made the film more interesting would have been if the film leaned into the premise a bit more and had like 20-30 different people going after Hal or if it focused a bit more on how his lying making things tough on the town.

Have him break something by accident and lie about it or point the finger at someone else. Effectively Hal would be destroying the town from the inside by getting everyone to be really suspicious of each other. That would have absolutely been the best way to go here and I think it would have been highly effective. It would have certainly amped up the drama here and also given the town more reason to be so angry at him. Otherwise it’s not like the guy was a super criminal here, he didn’t do enough to justify how everyone turned so violent by the end. Even if Alan and Rosemary were instigating most of it.

Overall, Picnic isn’t a very memorable title and it’s also not a very eventful one. If you want to watch a film about a picnic then that’s probably the novelty feature for this movie but that’s just not enough of a hook. You can do a lot better with both romance and drama films so you can just leave this one by the wayside. It may not be a very bad film but there just aren’t any really strong elements to it.

Overall 4/10

Tokyo Mew Mew Olé! Review

Posted on September 24, 2022 by dreager1

It’s time to talk about an absolutely brutal manga that is just awful on so many levels. Man this one was bad and I had a bad feeling about it right from the jump. The original Tokyo Mew Mews may not have been fantastic manga but they at least had a lot of fun moments and cool things happening at all times. This one? It’s trying its very best to be a nonstop reverse harem at all costs while destroying all of the characters in the process. Even having some serious fights was not enough to save this one.

So the plot starts out rather similar to the main series but in reverse. Shibuya is a rather shy guy who keeps to himself. Some think he’s cool in an aloof way while others just think he’s a jerk but he doesn’t care. Unfortunately, a mad scientist (The mother of his crush Anzu) ends up firing off a powerful energy blast that transforms 5 teenage guys into cat warriors. Shibuya is now the leader of this Mew Mew group and he has to try and hide this from the world or he will be a laughing stock.

The only way to get rid of these powers is to find a bunch of “Mew Aqua” crystals. Along the way he will also have to fight off powerful Chimera monsters and a villain group led by Deep Blue who seem to want to destroy the planet. Along the way Shibuya must now try to confess his feelings for Anzu. The tough part is that the other 4 guys are in love with her as well and the same is true for the 3 big villains. Anzu loves the attention from the 8 guys but the problem is that she is slowly falling for all of them as well. Can she choose…must she choose? She will have to handle this carefully.

The original Mew Mew series was a classy affair. The cat gimmick may have been a bit much but hey it was a classic magical girl show about fighting monsters. You had a wholesome romance with the nice guy and the “bad boy” trying his best to get the lead’s attention. The romance itself may have been super weak but the show as a whole was just classic. This series just feels desperate right off the jump. The whole series is about getting in as much shipping as possible and it’s absolutely nonstop.

The plot even curves around this for no reason. Let me give you an example here real quick. One aspect of this is how the Mew Mew formula not only turns you into a cat but it also affects your personality this time. Shibuya is forced to yell stuff like “Pleased to be of service”! and every time he tries to gag himself but it’s too late. By the end of the series he stops resisting but apparently it’s something that happens to all of the characters. Part of the transformation is a mental suggestion that forces you to strike up different poses and say crazy catchphrases. This is obviously not serving any point except to try and make the characters as embarrassed as possible. It’s not a good look.

Then there is the romance which is awful. As mentioned in the intro, everybody likes Anzu. They just can’t stop thinking about her and while it’s obvious that she will choose Shibuya in the end, did we need everyone to fall for her like this? It’s just really excessive but the absolute worst part of it is that Anzu gets her own feelings confused as well. If she was just being very stoic about it the whole time or patronizing that would help but when she actually starts to think that she likes the other guys as well then it becomes an issue.

The series could have easily tried to make Anzu better by being decisive but this was just here for the drama. At the end of the day the whole series is just here for a lot of shipping. You even have the guys showing off so much that they all start to be in awe at times. At one point they’re stranded at the desert and have to make some desperate crazy calls. The plot takes a backseat all of the time and so this ends up being a horrible manga. Every single moment is weaker than its original incarnation but not by a little, it’s by a lot. There is no reason to actually read this manga in the end. There’s just no replay value here and it feels like the worst possible way to continue the franchise. I’m glad the original show got a reboot so people can check that out instead.

So as you can see, I didn’t like Anzu as the main heroine. She’s just not decisive enough and gets kidnapped a whole lot. Anzu may have been brave to enter the villain base on her own at one point but she’s captured so effortlessly that it just makes the whole decision look bad. Shibuya is also bad as the main guy because he is way too timid. He also has no control over his cat form so he will suddenly get real serious and possessive, then back to normal. These massive mood swings don’t help his character in the slightest or help you see how Anzu could have fallen for him in the first place.

Yoyogi is the smart member of the group so expect him to be talking down to everyone all the time. It isn’t very impressive though considering that his abilities aren’t even above the others and intelligence barely matters in this series. You either land your attack and destroy the enemy or you don’t. There’s no room for big fancy plans or any of that stuff. This guy’s annoying all the way through and you know he has no shot at the romance either way. While you can’t have a team without a bunch of team members, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to this guy. There’s nothing interesting or endearing about him.

Ryusei is the youngest one of the group and he’s very headstrong as a result. Usually I like that kind of character but of course it’s more to show him as the naïve character who gets some feelings for Anzu but isn’t able to express himself. He can be really wild in his cat form as well and is often a liability. I think he could have been a decent character if handled right but of course the series was not going to handle anything right like that so it was game over right from the start.

Ayato is the rich member of the group who tries to be the mature guy who keeps everyone in line. Of course that doesn’t prevent him from falling for Anzu as well. He mainly tries to stay out of the race at least so he doesn’t complicate matters but of course it would have been even better if he could have just been a mentor figure. At least he can pull his weight more than some of the other characters and actually seems to understand the stakes. I can give him some reasonable props next to the other characters but wouldn’t say that I liked him much at all.

Finally we have Taichi who is the worst member by far. It’s not even close, the guy whines a lot and is super weak so it gets to his head and he starts to think about the dark side. C’mon now, you can’t be switching up this quickly. It’s a really bad look for him and he never really rebounds from this. It would be extremely difficult for anyone to make a comeback from that because once you’re a traitor then you’ve crossed a line that must not be crossed. Getting back from that is incredibly difficult to the point of being nearly impossible. This guy got off really easy if you ask me.

Then for the 3 Wiseman group: Latte, Chai, and Mocha, none of them were all that good. Latte was another guy obsessed with Anzu the whole time and he wanted her to love him but of course that wasn’t possible. It’s an awful motivation for a character as well. Then you have Chai and Mocha whose motivations were weak enough where they were also ready to quickly jump in and help the heroes out when things got rough. If you were a villain with a lot of convictions then that surely wouldn’t happen right? I like the title since the 3 Wisemen sounds impressive but there’s nothing particularly wise about them.

Additionally, they could have murdered the heroes so many times but kept choosing not to which was a big mistake. They’re so much stronger than the Mew Mew fighters that it’s scary. They would often win in a single blow but just let the heroes live because they can. That certainly came back to bite them later on. Then you have Dark Blue who has no conviction of her own here either.

She wants to effectively reset the world as humans have messed everything up. Okay that’s great but then all it takes is a few words for her to rethink everything? That felt way too fast if you ask me, there was just no compelling points brought up beyond the obvious. So that shouldn’t have been enough to turn Dark Blue. Not at all, it just serves to show us that she really didn’t have much drive before now.

This series probably has the most reverse fanservice I’ve seen in a minute as well. One look at the costumes and you can see how they aren’t practical at all. I’ve always said that a bad costume isn’t necessarily fanservice on its own. It’s all in how the camera zooms in or how the manga panels are meant to draw your attention. Well, here they are obviously meant to be fanservice bait. It’s a little hard to take seriously compared to traditional fanservice but I’ll still dock points in the same way because it’s yet another element that is taking priority over the plot.

When you stop to think about it, there is barely a plot here. None of the characters actively work to remove their powers after the opening chapters. The 3 Wisemen want to change the planet so they send one shot monsters out once in a while but don’t do much about that until the very ending either. Even the whole environmental theme is mostly removed from the original series. The villains own a company where they talk about going green as a front which was interesting but it’s ditched almost immediately. Going more into that could have been interesting but ultimately it didn’t happen. This series just feels like a waste all the way through.

The series works to have a bit of a body count by the end and a lot of emotional scenes but they ring hollow as you don’t like any of the characters by this point. The only consolation I can give the series is that the art was actually fairly good. There is a lot of detail put into each of the pages so I can appreciate that but at the same time a series cannot survive on art alone. A bad story will be just as bad even if the art is excellent. So the fight scenes look good at least but don’t do much to salvage the overall product.

At the end of the day, if the series wanted to be anywhere close to the original then it should have grabbed the stronger elements from the first title and built upon them. For example, the main girls there were all friends by the end and had solid banter. These guys? Well, they’re all jealous of each other because of Anzu so there’s a lot of fighting but it’s more personal and not as bantery like with the old cast. You don’t really have any scenes of the characters getting to know each other and having a good time because they have one track minds. The characters don’t have great development and again there are no big story beats or deeper themes to keep track of. It’s like the series just grabbed the concept but didn’t actually read the original series.

Overall, Tokyo Mew Mew Olé! is a really awful series. The romance here is probably some of the worst that I’ve seen since Black Bird and that one was historically bad. The whole series is really focused on the romance as everyone tries for Anzu but at the end of the day there isn’t any substance here for it. The series tries to bring you back every month with the shipping but it’s just not enough. I mean that’s probably one of the worst ways you can try to promote a series. By the time things get serious in the final chapters it is way too late. This is really a series that never needed to be made. The concept itself isn’t awful automatically of making the guys the magical fighters for a change but it feels like the series never intended to take its own premise seriously and that’s the most disappointing thing here. Definitely skip this series if you can, it’s not worth checking out.

Overall 1/10

Clannad Review

Posted on September 19, 2022 by dreager1

Clannad is one of those romance anime that you had to have heard of at some point. It got really big back in its day after all as one of those shows that would get really emotional. Well I’ve finally gotten to check it out and it’s definitely a solid title. From the big 3 I would say it beats Air but loses out to Kanon. Ultimately the ending is probably the most satisfying out of all 3 but Kanon executed the mystery elements and ominous snow the best. You always felt like something crazy could happen at any moment and it did have someone fighting off monsters so it wasn’t afraid to get supernatural. This one gets supernatural as well but in a different way.

The show starts off by introducing us to Tomoya who is your average student just trying to enjoy his life to the fullest. He suffered an injury which prevents him from playing Basketball though and this has caused a big rift with his father who was seemingly at fault for this. So Tomoya is still bitter at this whole circumstance but tries to bury this beneath his carefree personality. His best friend Sunohara is even more carefree so the two of them get along just fine. As the show goes on Tomoya befriends 5 girls at the school and helps them deal with their own personal challenges and trials. Perhaps in helping them he will be able to get past his own issues as well.

So at its core this is a bit of a slice of life. Each story arc will focus on one girl in particular as Tomoya gives her his full attention. There are overarching plots throughout these arcs though and it’s not like the girls vanish. The main story is really about helping Nagisa get the drama club up and running. It’s tough though since the Student Council is all powerful and there aren’t enough members. That’s the general focus. So there’s always a lot going on but you can clearly tell who is the focus at any given point even while the main plot is going on. I would also consider this to be part harem as well since inevitably everyone seems to like Tomoya and you have to guess which girl he ends up with. It’s done in a classy way though where they’re not all trying to seduce him or anything like that. Plus the show is very tame with the fanservice.

I would say the amount of fanservice here is close to 0. Perhaps not at absolute 0, the ultimate technique of the Cygnus, but it’s close enough. That’s definitely a good thing, the show is going for a very mature vibe where the characters actually have real interactions with them and the drama isn’t forced. The show never has to try getting really edgy or flashy to keep the audience’s attention either which helps out quite a bit. In general this is what I expected though because this company is always good with that. I also appreciate that the series isn’t quite as depressing as something like Air which would absolutely have hurt the score here. Instead while not everyone gets a happy ending, nobody gets a terrible one either.

So lets go through each character and I’ll touch on their story beats. First we should start with Tomoya. His plot is ongoing as he talks to everyone else but perhaps because of this, his plot feels the most rushed and the one that doesn’t really get to end. Of course he doesn’t get along with his father which is a big plot point but surprisingly this doesn’t really get resolved. The final scenes with them give you the hope that things will start to change but it’s not really confirmed.

We don’t really see enough to truly get why Tomoya is so upset with the father though. Not being able to play Basketball ever again is definitely rough but was the father actually a vicious person back then, was it more or less an accident? You can make some good guesses based on how we see that he’s a full alcoholic now but it doesn’t seem like Tomoya really tried to help either. My interpretation was the show used this to tell us that Tomoya was actually the unreasonable one here. The contrast would be that he’s always ready to help everyone else out and be a super nice guy but he was too bitter to solve his own issue.

It’s an interesting angle and every scene we get in the show is the father trying to reach out and rekindle their relationship while Tomoya acts out. I just wish this could have gotten more closure. It’s the only part of the show that isn’t very satisfying. It didn’t need to show more of the flashback but just give more of a final conversation between the two of them. They didn’t even have to get along, having Tomoya decide that he just can’t do it would still work. Just something more than what we got.

As a character Tomoya is otherwise very solid though. While I didn’t agree with how he handled his personal issues, he was really helpful to everyone else. Tomoya was always willing to stick his neck out and try to improve a situation. He saved a lot of lives in that way and he was also quick on the uptake and always ready with some banter. The only times he would go too far with his teasing was with Fuko. He definitely should have eased up on messing with her while she was zoned out and it felt more mean spirited than funny. So as a main character he probably loses to the other two big KEY protagonists but there are more positives to his character than negative.

His friend Sunohara is a good character to talk about next because he doesn’t get much of a character arc. He’s the comic relief character of the group so as you can imagine things tend to be rather dicey for him. Unfortunately he’s the kind of character who is obsessed with girls the whole time and so most of his scenes fall flat. He’s easily got to be the worst character here and I think he should have just been cut out. I know a lot of times you need a second guy around so all of the characters can compare him to the lead and make their choice but this guy just isn’t needed.

At best he has a bit of a character focus in that he doesn’t like when characters make up excuses not to try so hard. He takes it extremely personal and uses that as extra motivation during the Basketball game. At his core he’s not a bad person as most of his scenes are just for laughs but even then I just wouldn’t say that I was a big fan. His sister Mei also doesn’t have a lot to do here and comes across as one of the more random characters. I guess she’s nice enough but since Sunohara already doesn’t have much of an important role here, you can probably guess that her role is really small as well.

First up is Kyou and she’s probably the most selfless of the heroines. She likes Tomoya but basically buries her feelings because her sister Ryou likes him. As a result she does her best to try and ship them together at every point. Unfortunately Ryou just isn’t able to capitalize on this and I’ll get into that more on her section. Kyou is easily one of the standout characters of the series and kept on fighting with Tomoyo (Not to be confused with Tomoya) as the best character in the series. She doesn’t really have a big character arc compared to the other girls. At most you could say that she had to come to terms with her feelings more directly as the series went on but she had no inner demons to conquer.

This is part of why she is such a great character. While everyone else was dealing with things, she was just putting others first and intentionally staying in the background. She’s also a very high energy character who is always acting really confident and getting the ball rolling. Kyou adds a lot to the dynamic in every scene and so you always appreciate having her around.

Now her sister Ryou just isn’t as solid. Of course you probably know that I’m not really big on the very shy characters. They just aren’t as entertaining and Kyou basically set her up with the bases loaded several times and Ryou messed it up every time. Even if Ryou is super shy, you’d think that she would at least honor Kyou’s constant sacrifices and try to talk to Tomoyo right? This is the main reason why I could never root for her. You’ve just got to give me at least an inch here. If Ryou isn’t willing to work towards her goal at all then it’s game over.

Just about any scene with Ryou is one where she is getting saved by Kyou. So I give Kyou full credit and top marks here but I have to give Ryou the big 0 if this was a test. She’s easily the least interesting of the heroines as well because there isn’t anything more to her than being timid. You could have her missing from an episode and I wouldn’t even notice.

Back to the high quality characters though, next up is Tomoyo and she aspires to be the student council president. She will help make a difference in the school and the current school council isn’t very good anyway so they really need to be bumped out. She’s a straight A student and top of her class but unfortunately her association with Tomoya may start affecting her reputation. She doesn’t care though and still brings in her best effort to not just be a guiding light to the best students but to the worst ones as well.

I liked her drive and she definitely went the extra mile. I think part of what makes her a good character is that she wasn’t just helping Tomoya because she liked him. I think she would have done the same thing for a number of other characters. I also appreciated her putting Sunohara in his place time and time again. That guy was definitely asking for it. She also gets more of a backstory than the others as she used to be a school delinquent which is where she learned to fight. This reputation has followed Tomoyo around to the point where it is hurting her future prospects as well.

So she has to try and get away from her past. The tough part is choosing between following her ideals or worrying about her self image. Of course she’s also got the romance plot to consider as well. I thought the show did a good job of making her a very well rounded character and someone that you could root for. She doesn’t hang out with the rest of the cast quite as much so in terms of full screen time she may have a bit less than the others but she does get a full epilogue episode in the what if scenario so that’s impressive.

Yes, past the final episode there is a what if episode about a different timeline and she’s one of the main characters there. That has to be fun for the fans since it seems rare that you would actually go far enough to check out another route like that. I’d say she earned it though, like I said she was always in the mix for being the best character here.

Another really good character was Kotomi. She probably has the toughest backstory to get around. Basically she was a child genius but the problem is that her parents were geniuses too and always had to balance a very difficult career. They were never home and so she was often neglected. One day they died in a plane crash and it really stunted her emotional growth to the point where she can’t really talk to people normally. That’s Tomoya’s queue to step in and talk to her. Gradually she learns to open up more and also confronts her past which she had been intentionally avoiding.

Now as a kid she did make some pretty big mistakes like a certain burning scene but as she was a kid it’s hard to blame her too much there. The oblivious character type isn’t often my favorite but the show doesn’t go too far with it. There’s also a twist about her knowing Tomoya back in the day which didn’t really help her recovery either. It’s easy to sympathize with Kotomi which is part of what helps her be a strong character her. I’d also say that being oblivious also helps a bit in the romance sense as she isn’t really trying for Tomoya. You can still sense the romantic undertones but it was nice to have someone who was really more of a friend the whole time.

Then there is Fuko who feels younger the whole time so it’s hard to see her as a romantic rival either way. Now she’s close to being dead so in a way you could say that she had it hard as well but living in a spirit body isn’t so bad. I’d say that the show doesn’t play this up as a super sad affair the whole time and the emotional parts are really about people not remembering her at times. It makes a case for being the saddest arc in the series. To counter that, Fuko is also the most cheerful member of the cast. Her arc is all about getting starfish to people and that gets tricky.

See, people don’t tend to remember her after a while. The rules of the supernatural follow the same ones as in Noragami where you need to constantly be around or have a powerful tie to the world or you will be forgotten. This arc definitely does get emotional with that because in a way you feel like there’s no way she can win in the end. In fact, the arc is even sadder in hindsight as the show goes on and the characters actually do forget her.

Again, the show doesn’t dwell on this so it’s not played up as a big tearjerker moment whenever she’s around but it’s definitely sad when you think about it. Until her real body wakes up, she is doomed to just wander the town for eternity with nobody recognizing or acknowledging her in any way. Only once a while when she charges up enough energy can she quickly catch someone’s attention but it’s always a very fleeting moment. It was always fun to see her although I think the show could have done a little more with her cameos down the road.

I wouldn’t say the show completely dropped the ball but there’s a lot of fun they could have had with this but all of her scenes basically end up being filler each time. That’s part of the gag but I think having a good heart to heart moment or something would have been nice there. Or maybe have the show end with her showing up and saying hey to the cast in her real body. Perhaps it would have taken some of the focus away but it would be worth it since I’d say that she earned her moment.

Finally we have the main heroine Nagisa. Now there’s a lot of pressure on being the main heroine. I’d say that goes without saying and it’s definitely the case here. Nagisa is a good character even if I would only put her 4th among the 6 girls. Nagisa really wants to be in a drama club but as for why that is, the show takes a little bit to build up to it. She can be a bit spacey and really likes the big Dango family. It tends to distract her and of course Tomoya is always distracted in helping the other girls so I guess they have that in common.

As the show goes on we naturally get a big backstory for Nagisa and it’s a sad one although not as sad as Kotomi or Fuko’s. Nagisa always feels like she did something wrong back in the day and as a result she is always acting very cautiously. Nagisa thinks her parents are hiding this so she never really confronts them. (They are hiding some secrets but nothing that they blame Nagisa for) So you’ve got a little drama there. Ultimately this works as a big trial for Nagisa but I would say it’s a bit harder to connect with it. She takes the situation rather hard but I just didn’t find it nearly as emotional.

Nagisa tends to fall for a lot of Tomoya’s gags the whole time but always means well. She tries to defend him when things get tricky and she fights hard to get her own club. So there isn’t anything really bad to say about her. She does well as the main heroine and gets her moments to shine. I can’t say I’m super on board with the romance angle but it’s not bad either and I’ll go more into that later on. I think something that could have helped her here would be to have had some kind of big moment outside of her arc. Mostly Tomoya did the heavy lifting in each arc and that makes sense as the main character but maybe having Nagisa come in with a clutch assist in one of them would have been good. Something to put her ahead of the pack.

Akio and Sanae did well as the parents. Now this is a subplot that the show really executed well as they initially start out as very gimmicky side characters but their plot actually gets rather serious. We learn more about their past and see why they are so protective. I also like how close they are even after being married for so long. You could make the very strong case that they have the healthiest relationship in the whole show. Akio may end up saying the wrong thing a lot and getting himself into hot water but he is always looking out for Sanae. He also has a very critical moment in Nagisa’s character arc.

It’s rare to see the parents actually getting a quality role like this so I was all for it. They also got to show Tomoya what a healthy family dynamic looks like which helped him in his own character arc as well. Sanae should probably start baking more to improve her cooking skills but low key I think she likes the attention since it gets Akio to chase after her. Again, it’s just a fun dynamic and even more so if you think she’s trolling him a bit there. He certainly likes trolling Tomoya a lot so it just runs in the family.

Now there is one plot that I found to be really pointless though. So at the beginning of every episode we start with a dystopian future where a girl is talking to a little robot she created. See, this kid had the power to create life but only once and so she created a robot but now he’s lonely and she’s sad too. The two of them are doomed to live forever in a world without life which is kind of depressing. The story feels like a very vague meta commentary on something and you’re just trying to figure it out. By the end of the series it makes sense but I just didn’t think it added to anything. It was just a bit boring and the only part of the series where I could even say that. Remove this and just keep the series on the main characters. That would be for the best.

The animation is pretty good. There isn’t much time to show off because this isn’t an action anime or anything like that but we do get a few action scenes with Tomoyo once in a while. The show never looks sloppy or off model so that alone is enough to fit the bill. It’s good enough for the title. The soundtrack is a bit more on the forgettable side though. The opening is one of the weakest ones I’ve heard in a long time. It’s just way too soft. This may be an emotional series but I feel like you could still add a little more energy to it. It’s one of those openings you probably would never re watch. Then the ending is even weaker. I appreciate the dedication to the Dango gag but this isn’t the place for it!

At the end of the day Clannad really succeeds because it’s really good at every genre that it tackles. It’s a really good slice of life title as you actually have time to see the characters hanging out and just relaxing in all kinds of settings. It’s a good way to build up some character development and the characters can hold their own so it doesn’t get boring. On the drama front the show manages to build up a lot of emotional scenes and get things sad for everyone without overdoing it and making the whole thing try hard. It never gets to be too traumatic or gritty while still keeping the emotions high.

Then for the romance, well that’s always a little trickier but I will say that on average it did the romance better than most. One of the key staples to a good romance is that it needs to take place over a long while. Any romance that is instant will be a weak one guaranteed. Likewise you don’t want rebound romances and that’s one advantage that harem titles actually have. Usually the lead doesn’t pick anyone until the end and all of the girls liked him from the start so there is no rebound. Some of the less classy ones would mess this up but not Clannad. The show cheats a bit by showing an alternate route but since it is expressly an “alternate” path it did choose one girl in the end so I’ll give it props there.

I won’t say which girl wins out but it’s probably pretty clear from the start. Some shows can actually keep you guessing right to the end like Lull of the Sea, but this is one where you can just tell based on who gets the focus and everything. The show isn’t trying to be very secretive about this at all. The main romance takes place over a long time and develops naturally so yeah I’d be able to confidently say that it’s one of the better romances. That’s a good thing because the show is part romance after all. I still didn’t ship the characters but if it happens then I guess I’m cool with it. I did like some of the other characters better than this heroine though.

During the show there is one Basketball game and it kind of made me wish we could have gotten some more sports. The game itself was very interesting because of course Tomoya can’t really lift his arm to play the way that he used to. So he’s at a disadvantage the whole time and has to try and win with pure strategy alone. I think making that a full episode would have been a blast even if it may not have really flowed with the rest of the show. Hey, sports and tactics are always a great mix and the show got me invested so it’s definitely a complement. I wonder how bad the injury was that Tomoya doesn’t feel like he can ever rehabilitate it though. The show doesn’t go into specifics and surely there’s a way to rebound. At least I figure there would be.

Overall, Clannad is a title that I could safely recommend to just about any anime fan as long as you aren’t looking for an action title. It’s just a well written title all around with a lot of strengths. Perhaps it isn’t as funny as it wishes it could be but there are still scenes that will make you smile here and there. Perhaps not laugh out loud funny but I did like a lot of Tomoya’s witty comebacks from time to time. It also never hurts to see Sunohara get beat up. The voice actor does a good job with the reactions.

Overall 7/10

Grease 2 Review

Posted on September 16, 2022 by dreager1

Sometimes a movie will at least start out good and you see the potential slowly get squandered away but this time you could really say that the movie was no good right from the start. It immediately feels very weak and is just ripping ideas off of the first one. It’s not subtle about doing this either and so it’s just weaker than the first film in every way along with a historically bad song thrown into the mix. You’ll definitely want to skip that one as quickly as possible.

The film starts off with everyone heading back to school and a lot of singing has taken place. It’s been a while since the events of the first film but things are more or less the same with how you have the gang of guys and the gang of girls who are all supposed to pair up. Well, Stephanie is through with this and breaks up with her counterpart. She wants to be with someone dashing, someone who is like a true mystery man. That seems like it’ll be difficult though and then a new transfer student named Michael appears.

He’s a nice guy who he doesn’t quite fit in with the gangsters. The thing is that he likes Stephanie and wants to find some way to get her to appreciate him. She doesn’t give him a chance normally so then he decides to become a superhero. The cool rider of her dreams. All it takes is a leather jacket and a helmet to cover his face. Now Stephanie can’t get enough of him. Should he keep up the deception so that they can get married or will he have to come clean and risk it all?

There’s not a ton of plot here though as that setup is interrupted a whole lot by a ton of random songs and characters messing around. There’s almost no focus here and as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the gags and such are directly ripped from the first film. This one doesn’t have any real originality and it shows. The songs are also much weaker. In particular the reproduction song has to stand out as one of the worst songs of all time. I don’t recall hearing a song in any movie that was quite this bad.

The scene goes on forever too and goes well beyond the point of the teachers appearing to look incompetent. This guy should have been fired right out of the gate. The principal also doesn’t really get any big hype moments the way that she did in the sequel. She is around for this movie but doesn’t do a whole lot beyond just glaring and standing around. Feels like a true waste of her character in the meantime. Of course that’s basically the case for anyone here. Frankie returns but her role is so small that she may as well not have returned. She really doesn’t add anything to the story.

Right off the bat the romance is really bad here. Stephanie is super mean to Michael throughout the entirety of the film because he’s just too nice and she wants someone who’s a delinquent. It’s quite telling that she fell for Michael in his alter ego form immediately. That’s because the romance is super shallow. She’s not falling in love with the person but the ideal/mask behind the guy. Nah that’s not a good look for her at all. So by the end you definitely aren’t rooting for them to get together.

I think the film could have done something good with her character but it was squandered. She just comes across as too mean. Also, one of the big drama moments here is that she is given an ultimatum that if she won’t date one of the other gang members then she has to stop wearing the gang clothes. She seems sad about this…but just toss it? It should be a no brainer since she has already decided that she doesn’t like any of those guys. Being in the gang never seemed too important to her either so the whole thing was a bit odd.

As for Michael, well I’ll give him some props for being determined but should he really want to try to date someone who can’t stand him? The level of aggression here was really something so even if he can trick her into liking a different form of his, it doesn’t really seem like a good deal at all. He would always have to be on guard and even if later on she liked the normal form as well, you may have doubts on if she really likes him or just the superhero form.

There’s just a lot of reasons not to care for the romance. I suppose at least you will care more about them than the side characters who really have nothing to do here. It seems like after the main characters left in the first film, the gangs have gotten extremely weak now. It’s actually played for laughs how they now get picked on by a rival gang. Come on, that’s disgraceful. So they’re getting picked on while in their own home turf and they are still more determined to stop the cool rider than the other gang? That’s why they will never be in first place, their priorities are all mixed up.

Michael certainly learned fast too since he was able to easily out speed both gangs and pull off incredible jumps. This guy was a living legend after only a day or two. At least this will buy the rest of the gang some time to finally get good but it’s not like any of them are likable enough to root for anyway. Then in the girl gang the only one with a big role is one character who wants people to stop treating her like a kid. In a better movie this could have led to a lot of very emotional moments and big character beats but in this movie it was just there as fluff. It ultimately doesn’t get all that important as the movie just dashes to the end.

If you take away the musical aspect then this could be better but unlike the first film I wouldn’t even say there is a whole lot of potential here. At least the first film had quality dialogue, an interesting setup, and just a lot of promise. This one wasn’t trying hard to make a plot right from the start so even if you take away the awful songs, it’s not like it would be positive. I would still take that as a consolation though.

Overall, Grease 2 is one of those ultimately lazy films that figures it can strike lightning twice without having to actually do anything. It’s just an extremely weak movie all around and it’s probably for the best that they hadn’t made a third one right after this. I would say to stay far away from this one. Even if you’ve seen the original and liked it, you’ll want to avoid Grease 2. It’s possible that liking the original would actually make this one feel even weaker since you’ll have seen what it could have been like.

Overall 2/10

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