An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Category: Anime Reviews

Bad End? – In Search of the Lost Future Spoiler Review

If, by chance, you find yourself in Anime High School and don’t want to go on an adventure, apparently in addition to not sitting in the window-side seat second from the back, avoiding mysterious transfer students, and keeping out of any sort of Paranormal or Occult interest group, you should also stay well away from the Astronomy Club, if this show and Brynhildr in the Darkness have anything to say about it.

And that might be the biggest takeaway from the whole show. So, this show… It’s a show. It has episodes and everything. But it’s not exactly memorable or engaging, and in some ways it’s actually strange that it’s not. We’ve got an imperfect time loop, a Sword of Damocles hanging over a lovable character, riddles and mysteries, slow-burn development of the rest of the cast… so why doesn’t this work?

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How do I hate the main character? Let me count the ways – Revisions Spoiler Review

Oh boy, this show sure is… something. So the basic idea is actually one that sounds different and engaging: Shibuya (a city that’s normally a rather busy and famous ward of Tokyo) is transported to a post-apocalyptic future where the people must learn to survive both cut off from the rest of the world and against the new threats that have emerged: giant biomechanical horrors known as the Revisions. Helping them is a contact from human civilization of this time who grants a small group of special young people a set of mechas that only they can use, placing them on the front line of Shibuya’s defense.

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Controversial (?) Gateway Cyberpunk – Beatless Spoiler Review

It happens every now and then that I sit down to watch an anime expecting it to be bad. It’s not often; Like most people, I like to watch good shows when I can. But now and then something can be “So bad it’s good” or mediocre Junk Food, and sometimes that’s what you need. As a reviewer, every so often I need to dive into the world of the terrible so I can analyze how and where it doesn’t work, and as a writer it’s sometimes inspiring to consume bad media because you can look at it and say “Wow. I could do better.” I can stumble on shows I find to be bad without going looking, but when you’re looking for trouble like this, you’re very likely to find it. The masses usually seem kind of easily pleased, so when the consensus isn’t happy you probably won’t be either.

But now and again, there’s a show that seems to have slipped through the cracks, that has a general consensus as to its lack of quality but then on watching it you (or at least I) ultimately enjoy. Most of the time there is some glaring flaw that you can look at and say “Okay, I wasn’t totally put off by this, but I can see why people in general were.” It’s scarce as hens’ teeth to look at something with a poor overall rating and say “Why didn’t people like this?”.

Enter Beatless, an intelligent and accessible Cyberpunk anime with a lousy reputation that I don’t think it deserves in the least. I’m going to take a look at it today, and try to figure out why so many people seemed to hate this show so much.

Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long one.

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A Lesson in Stakes and Tension – The Promised Neverland Spoiler Review

This week, it bears reminding everyone that what I write are full spoiler reviews. I’m willing to go over every movement in the plot, in order to analyze what makes it good or bad. Usually I think putting the word “Spoiler” in the review title is enough, but when it comes to The Promised Neverland , I feel like there needs to be a more certain and bold message: If you aren’t sure you want spoilers for this show, you are in the wrong place. It’s worth watching and because of its nature it’s probably worth watching unspoiled if you are at all the kind of person who minds spoilers. The review and analysis will still be here when you get back.

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Magic and Mayhem – Witch Craft Works Spoiler Review

I love anime witches – Whether they’re in comfy stories like Kiki’s Delivery Service or Flying Witch or more adventurous affairs like Little Witch Academia, I just think they’re nifty, especially around this time of year. Usually cute girls (though you do get boy witches and older witches sometimes), and always with the mystical powers and big pointy hats, they show up most often in Urban Fantasy settings, whether out in the open or keeping their powers secret from the world. Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches didn’t really live up to the “Witch” concept, which I don’t hold against it, but for a hefty serving of witchy goodness, I’m going to take a look at Witch Craft Works.

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Sealed with a Kiss – Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches Spoiler Review

What if I told you there was an anime where teenagers have to end up kissing each other to use magical powers, and that the first such power revealed was body swapping? You’d probably think, as I thought, that it would likely be awkward as heck, and even more likely neither funny nor charming. Well, that’s the premise of Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, and I’m pleased to say that it’s at least a little bit funny and charming, and not as awkward as one would fear.

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Welcome to Chaos – Dorohedoro Spoiler Review

In the midst of a vicious battle, taking place in what looks to be the back alley of a dingy industrial/modern city, a big lizard man clamps his jaws down over the head of some kind of masked sorcerer. The man in the mystic space inside the lizard guy’s mouth appears before the dazed and confused magic-user and declares, dramatically, “You’re not the one.”

The lizard guy extracts his foe and asks what the man in his mouth says, which the magician reports. Since it seems that magician is useless, the lizard guy slices him to bloody ribbons. The sorcerer’s severed hand shoots a dart of black smoke which conjures a door through which his partner escapes and we then follow the lizard guy, Caiman, and his friend and helper in this endeavor, Nikaido, who appear to be our main characters.

You probably have quite a few questions at this point. But that’s the very first scene of Dorohedoro, and if you weren’t already familiar with that fact, I think I’m doing you a favor by throwing you into the deep end as suddenly as the show.

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The Ecchi We’ve All Been Waiting For – Trinity Seven Spoiler Review

So, the “School for supers” archetype that we’ve been looking at this month has a few common elements. For one, the vast majority of them (including shows of the type I’ve looked at before, such as Hundred) have some degree of Harem elements. In a lot of ways, it’s very similar to what you see in the Isekai genre, where the same basic principles that are known to work are remixed in new ways with different trappings. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but in the end they develop a long set of expectations and turn out a lot of crowd-pleasing junk food, a good few generally disliked flops, and at least a couple gems at various stages in the genre’s popularity life-cycle.

One of the ways in which these shows distinct themselves from others of their type (if they’re smart enough to do that) is to focus on a different element of the formula. For Trinity Seven, the Harem and Ecchi elements that appear in other “Battle School” affairs are turned up to eleven. I said that Anti-Magic Academy worked better as a Harem show than it did as an action show, but its ambition was still firmly a hybrid, and given the dark tone and feel probably leaned more towards the weaker action side. Trinity Seven, by contrast, is all about that steamy Harem goodness, with some action and drama thrown in for good measure.

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Darker and Grittier Battle Harem – Anti-Magic Academy Spoiler Review

Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon is the story of Takeru Kusanagi and his misfit friends, a team of trainee witch hunters who may not assess well, but who end up thrown into harrowing situations where they can prove themselves. They’re students at the titular academy, where they learn and apply techniques to fight witches, people who use magic to threaten humanity. It’s a sometimes bizarre and usually dark take on the super-power battle-school scenario with a hearty side-helping of Harem elements. In some ways, there’s fairly little to talk about, while in others it’s absolutely worth a lengthy analysis, if for no other reason than to pick apart the underlying structure of its genre, and how its elements blend or don’t.

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Yes, I know – RWBY (Seasons 1-3/Beacon Arc) Spoiler Review

Many of you may be thinking something very particular right now. Specifically, something along the lines of “Wait, RWBY’s not an anime, it’s made in Texas!” And you’re right. By the technical definition used in the West of “Anime” being Japanese Animation, RWBY is not an Anime. However, even if you don’t take into account the massive amounts of merch and even the dedicated cosplay gathering for RWBY that would have been found at Anime Expo (in 2019), it’s undeniable that it’s appealing to a crowd that has a huge overlap with anime fans… and anyway, this is my blog, and I’m making up the rules for what I can or can’t write about. I’ll try to not bend the idea too often, but I think one moment to talk about the first few seasons of RWBY can be forgiven.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in.

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