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Reviews
Date a Live (2013)
Grand Epic, Breaks Genre Boundaries, Tale To Remember
Over 10 years has Date A Live has survived. It is very difficult for modern viewers to understand how big Date A Live was when it aired. It had the fastest light novel to anime adaptation ever. By volume 3 or so they already decided on the anime. Now it didn't have the insane production values that something like Sword Art Online has had. I want to mention this is not an exhaustive discussion. You can probably write a mini novel as review of this series and still not cover every topic. And this is only a spoiler free review.
I was initially going to delay a series overview based on what came after but judging by recent articles on the production committee, I felt it was imperative to write the review now. Since the series is approaching its end. Even tho 10 years feels like a long time, especially since most light novel series try to run on for very long but usually get cut short. But Date A Live aimed to follow the continuous story. By focusing on an overall grand narrative. This allows one season the novels to fluidly connect to each other. I feel around 20 or so is the best length. Anymore is simply too long. And I don't want it devolve into something like the fate series that has way too many spinoffs for its own good
Date A Live is a very difficult series to write a review for. This is because it does so much things right, so much things new, it would be a very very long review. You know a show is simply amazing is when it is difficult to write a review for. Vs when a show has a ton of problems, you can quickly pinpoint what it did wrong, and make a pretty concise review.
In short, you can call it a masterpiece. This is because Date A Live broke so many boundaries of what is genre can achieve. Not only did that, but it that under some of the hardest conditions. You cannot just outlast AOT these days, and still be relevant. People grow older, go to school, get jobs, aren't online. New shows come out as publishers want to create a cycle of pump and dump but never follow through. Publishers usually pick shows based on genres and the anime will scale depending on how big the publisher is. Like a manga publisher will tend to really stretch the show to fill all tv slots. They will adapt it slowly, put a lot of fillerish episodes effectively turning into a cw series. But a light novel publisher would try to keep it somewhat concise, but chooses to aim to promote a ton of light novels over a few. Date A Live But I would like to go in depth of what Date A Live has done.
Date A Live is a jack of all trades but MASTER of all. It has done that by completely subvertly everyone's expectations of when they see the show. You expect a nice relaxing shows with girls and some fighting, but as soon as you get in, you get introduced to a grand narrative with an amazing unique world, mysteries, villians, foreshadowing all of it towards a grand, epic, emotional finale.
Every season we have a new girl. This prevents the show from getting or feeling old. It makes the show refreshing, unique. Also by focusing on a new girl each season, it gives us time for But in addition it is overall adding more and more layers to the overall conflict. Especially season 2 onwards when the major villians appear and get involved. As these two things compound together thereby adding towards the greater conflict and thus a grand finale. But not only that, there is a ton of mysteries across the entire show. Including the origins of the conflict, villains, overall lore.
The overall lore takes a mix of things from mecha, biblical references, as well as just general aspects of life. It eventually feels unique enough where you can immerse yourself. From all the unique and beautiful locations. The soundtrack thus adds to the legendary
But while the cast of Date A Live is big, it still never loses its main focus from Shido, Tohka, Origami and its main villain of Westcott and Ellen. And by focusing on the primary villain as well as it how connects the origin of the conflict and the cast. And thus the narrative is coherrent. This gives Date A Live incredibly rewatchability. This is phenomenally rare for a series of its goofy genre. And this is largely thanks to the overall combination of foreshadowing, humor, action, storytelling, gradual crescendo, and emotional impact.
As you just continue, there is honestly not much you can complain about this show season 4 onwards. Season 3 clearly hampered but poor animation. The general consensus it is a masterpiece, incredible, at worst okay. It is pretty much just doing a lot of things right. If the only criticism of the series is it is a harem, calling the fandom names, saying you didn't watch it, ur series is pretty much doing everything right.
For the character designs, they are almost certainly some of the most beautiful, vivid, unique desisn I have seen. All have elaborate dresses, cute designs that tie into their individual quirks and powers.
As for the production of the anime itself, you can see that they heavily focused on adapting series above else. Goodshow puts its company on the line to finance the show after Kadokawa wanted to drop it in season 3. They weren't one of the companies that chose to Production values shot up. A lot more merchandise. Even tho Date A Live may end, you can never really replace a series that lasted 2013-2024. Since effectively a lot of stuff that aired that time isn't here anymore. The anime bubble completely burst several years earlier in 2008. We were effectively in an almost anime recession. Ultimately Date A Live is a series fans are especially grateful for. One of the few light novel series that nearly managed to nearly completely adapt the entire story. A story that under all odds managed to give a massive satisfying payoff. It will a remain a memento that cannot be replaced of the early 2010s anime. It is a common joke that the community's favorite anime changes every season, and picking their one they value above all else would be like picking their favorite child. Anime industry is ultimately something difficult to keep up with as there is just too much coming and so much you can spend.
Kono subarashii sekai ni shukufuku o! (2016)
later seasons ruins the good experience of its intial release
I first want to mention I have nothing against edgy and dirty humor. In fact I do think it makes a show stand out.
Konosuba started off great. Our main hero eventually meets the girls Aqua, Megumin, Darkness one by one. They all feel unique and it becomes a joy to spend time with them. You love their unique quirks. But what happens if you push it further and further. Then the cracks start too show.
Konosuba has a limited cast. While this does look great on paper because it look like you can properly develop them. As a comedy show, eventually their uniqueness wears off, and they feel almost like background characters. Dividing it among 3 and you will lose the appeal of the characters by season 3. It effectively almost ruins what you like it about it in the first place
Konosuba after probably the first just becomes a chore to go through. Gags start getting repetitive. Plot just moves too slow and just isn't interesting at all. Certainly not enough to break the boundaries of the genre. And even if you treat it as procedural tv show it simply doesn't even work in that regard since the show isn't breaking the bounds of what to make you laugh.
The situational humor runs out. The verbal humor runs out. Konosuba having forced humor in the beginning but forced humor just becomes unfunny if you are keep on trying it.
There is certainly not enough action which hampers the overall plot and narrative as well. Now for a short perhaps 1-2 season show about comedy, you can dial it down. But if you start pushing it more and more further by season 3, you are just going to get it tired of it. You can think of it like watching too much sitcoms. But Konosuba has to relyon the same character quirks and gags which ruined their novelty. It makes you question why you like the character in the first place and why you bought their figure.
Kazuma is arguably the best character in the series and anchors it. He is interesting enough through his interactions with other characters. He is a joy to listen to. The voice actor does an excellent job in his portrayal. But he alone cannot carry a long series.
Continuing on Konosuba effectively turns a comedy show just into background noise while you mess around on your phone.
But ultimately Konosuba just does not live up to the hype that the community generates it. It's hype is largely due to its viral craze in 2016. But as a show you want to build towards something better and better and Konosuba just doesn't cut it. It is like a new dish. At first it tastes good. But serve it again and it just spoils the good experience you had.
You want a show to leave a lasting impression and you simply cannot do that if you look at the show through a lens that you want to relive 2016 again by watching later on. It is just not going to happen. You need to be building and raising the stakes to add novelty. Konosuba ultimately will be a series you will fall out of if you keep on watching. You will inevitably look at a series more critically as you keep on watching. It will just happen as you watch more and more anime, and see more and more.
Tensei Shitara Suraimu Datta Ken (2018)
One of the worst written isekai of all time.
This review contains no real spoilers, but gives you an overview of why this show is just bad.
I first want to mention that a lot of anime in general is made to sell, but not made to be remembered very fondly, critically, or seen to break what can be accomplished in the genre. Basically just made to cheat people out of money. Tensura is exactly on of these series.
The rotten tomatoes score for this movie shows you how the anime community has lost all aspects of critical thinking. Tensura has one of the worst rotten tomatoes critics score I have ever seen and an extremely poor performing box office despite shown in every theatre. FYI, movie critics are usually nicer on anime. Yet we are supposed to treat this series as the equivalent of a citizen kane. Anyone saying this is some sort of masterpiece really needs to review high school literature classes.
Tensura has become the junk food of anime. It looks tastes good at the beginning, but gets bad when you leave it out. It is easy to produce, and full of just bad stuff. It makes a lot of money, but is bad for you.
Isekai has become nothing but a unique hook to keep you in the beginning. Than suck the viewer in with abysmal writing as the show gets worse and worse. Similiar to the CW.
This series is nothing but a self insert fantasy for hikikomori to be overpowered and have a harem. I want to emphasize I have nothing against harems, but they need to be properly written and have substance. It is isn't clever or witty, it is a generic power fantasy of a video game setting rpg. No wonder Japan has a collapsing birth rate and foreigners are taking all their women.
This series has the all the ingredient of a bad show. Predictable plot, bad pacing, deus ex machine moments, pointless talk, no plot build up, no emotional moments.
Rimuru is one of the worst written anime characters in existence. He literally serves as nothing but a sex doll for big breasted female milfs or scantily clad lolis. He lost all substance in season 1. But he looks like a girl that is okay. He faces no hardship. He oneshots all of his opponents. Just an extremely overpowered. All the characters treat this guy as he is jesus.
Milim and Shuna are appalling one dimensional characters with next to no substance and history. Aside from fighting.
The villains are the one typical dimensional jackass. They come, get one shotted, you forget about them. They don't have substance or backstory that connects with the others. This pretty much happens throughout the light novels.
This series recklessly introduces a dozen or so characters, gets rid a chunk of them. This is pure bad writing at its finest.
The episodes are extremely dragged out with a lot of fluff talk that lead to nothing and no major part. Some episodes only involve characters talking. But the dialogue isn't witty, thought out, meaningful. So it is just people yapping; it is just filler. There may be a fight but it lasts pretty short throughout a season and has people yapping for the rest of it. These episodes make the cw shows feel like shakespeare. You can pretty much watch this show in the background while you play around on your phone.
The humor is extremely forced. It isn't good verbal humor nor situational humor. It is not even edgy humor. They just act silly for the sake of trying to make you laugh which never works.
The plot pretty much turns into nothing more than a hack and slash battle rpg.
I have saved you your hard earned time from trying to invest yourself in the series. It is a series that pretty much continues to get worse and worse as time passes. Might as well go play final fantasy if you want to immerse yourself in the fantasy experience.