Reviews

I had to update this review now that this show is over.. and I must say, this and "I've Somehow Gotten Stronger When I Improved My Farm-Related Skills" are the dumbest animes that dropped this year.

I was kind excited for this anime when the first trailer dropped out, it showed some blood and good action, but the second trailer just throwed the expectation away with the "school scenario". And now, after seeing some episodes I can say for sure, this anime is very boring and cliché.

It's an original animation from DMM, and the story starts very cliché, the main character is a normal student, until he is attacked and finds suddenly that his mother is the header of a ninja clan and he must succeed her someday. And from that point, he must train to become a ninja.

The characters doesn't stop using the word ninja, as they need to remind you every second that this is a ninja show, even if it doesn't seems. The "ninjas" are most old and stupid people working on companies or small stores, and the "ninja clans" are mostly corporates. To be a ninja on this show, all you need it's a super suit. And the biggest company around town, I meant, biggest ninja clan, wants the legendary battery that Ittoki's clan holds to powerup their suits for unlimited time. Yeah.. this show is all about getting a stupid battery, in other words, making an easy to understand comparison.. it's like Apple want to take down all small companies that uses android and want to steal the battery from Samsung for a new iphone pro max. On this anime, you even have a kind of 'police' that keeps the law and order between the clans (wtf?!)

Points for me that just made this plot dumb, more spoilers ahead

• The mc had a normal life until his is attacked by ninjas, and here he finds that her mother is the head chief of a ninja clan, and now for his own safety, he must become a ninja.. and to become a ninja, he must go to a ninja high-school where the same people who wants to kill him are around (that's how you protect your kids, you send them to the same house where the people who wants to murder them are assembled)

• The 'high-school' plot and concept was dumb. I think they placed this school thing only to show the characters wearing school uniform, because the plot and the ninja theme didn't make a good match here. What's the point of having different ninja clans if they all learn the same stuff in the same place? One of cool things about ninja stories is about having different and unique techniques that make each clan unique, something that you don't have here, as you also don't have the figure of a master and apprentice, or anything that would make a ninja clan unique, on this anime knowing how to use the high-tech ninja suit is the only thing important to become a ninja.

• The mc is just dumb and flat, he trusts everyone and thinks that he lives in the world of telletubbies. On the school's summer vacation, he invites his new 'friends' to the main HQ of his ninja clan. No one suspects about his friends, no one of the clan keeps an eye on them, they can move freely around the HQ and find all the security information about the base without any difficult. He doesn't show any real progress during the story, he was a telletubbie until the last episode.

• Having a kind of special police called ANNIN to keep an eye on each clan also added an useless plot to the story. Police to investigate, keep the law and order between ninja clans? C'mon.. are we really trying to tell a ninja story here?

• The girl (Kousetu) that the Ittoki's mom adopted used a mask for the most of the anime, until she tried to kill her. The mask-off was kind supposed to be a big revelation, but there was nothing uncommon on her face or any explanation for the mask, seems she was just wearing because of the flu I guess. By the way, she was the daughter of the Kouga clan (the one who wants to take the battery and kill Ittoki and his clan/Iga), and she happened to have a microchip on her head that Kouga could control her when needed. Seems the main villain (Kouga's clan boss) spent most of his life making kids with random women and inserted microchips on the kids and sent them to random clans, to be used as weapon someday if needed..

• On the last episode Ittoki just goes to the front door on Kouga's HQ, only to talk with the main villain and see if he confess his crimes (roll-eyes). At first he says that he forgives him for killing his mom.. (man, what a tellettubie), and after a lot of talking, Ittoki plans were only to record Kouga's boss confession on cam so the police (ANINN) could arrest him. (Yes, that's the best plan that Ittoki could had thought, go there only to have a talk and make the villain confess so he could leave the rest for the police.. (here is our main tellettubie hero). By the way, one episode before this one, Tokisada already got a video evidence to arrest Kouga, making all this plot meaningless. And on the last part, Kouga's boss tries to kill Ittoki and is stopped by Tokisada who kills the boss and then become a fugitive from the ninja-police (seems self-defense is not included on the ninja law)

I don't recommend spending time on this show, the plot is really dumb, mc is flat and unlikable. Really.. did they use someone who just graduated from college to write this anime? Or did they hire some 10 years old kid that won some kind of contest to write this story? Because here we have something written by someone who loves telletubies and kamen rider (this anime is a mix of both)

This anime assembles great voice talents, such as Natsuki Hanae (Tanjiro from Demon Slayer), and the Japanese legend Maya Sakamoto (one of most beautiful voices in Japan for me). The beginning of the anime is kind interesting, having Rikuo Uozumi as main character, a college recent graduated, without any dream and kind lost in life, just living his days working in a part time job in a convenience store. Then he meets Haru Nonaka, a teenager who got expelled from school because she got caught working in a pub. I kind love the introduction scene of Haru Nonaka, very cute, cheerful character with her raven as pet, she is the character who brings the charisma to this series. She have feelings for Rikuo, although he doesn't remember her at the beginning, she always stops by the store to see him. Then, we have Shinako Morinome, who was very close to Rikuo on college and now she works as a teacher, and she also starts stopping at the convenience store to see Rikuo. (She is also the one who Rikuo have love interests for).

Basically, the story is centered in the love triangle of Rikuo, Shinako and Haru. But the character of Shinako is what slow downs the whole story, she is still in love with a boy who died when she was a middle school student, and she is trying to move on using Rikuo for this purpose (poor guy).

The story's main problem is that we have two characters (Rikuo and Shinako) who doesn't know what they want, they are always confused, and the writer focus soo much on this point and forgets to add more interesting situations to develop the characters, you really don't see any interesting progress from ep 4 to the end. Most of the scenes ends to be the main character escorting Shinako or Haru to their homes at night (half of the anime is the main character escorting them to their homes.. (what gentleman *rolleyes*) the writer really seems to have ran out of ideas for other situations for the characters, which made the development of each character really slow down to almost none for the entire series).

Jumping to the end, Rikuo finally realizes that he is just being used by Shinako and it's impossible to get over the friend zone (she is afraid to move on until the end, even being officially dating with him for 3 months) and Rikuo goes after Haru. The main problem here is that Rikuo spent the whole series ignoring Haru, he never showed interest for her, and here is the point that having the whole series slowed down on Shinako's indecision, the writer never gave us any situation to make Rikuo have a real emotional interest in Haru. I though we would see something interesting on the episode when a robber entered on Haru's house, but nothing happened, all happens off-scene and we just see the main character playing the adult talking with the police.

For those who enjoy this kind of love triangle stories, I recommend watching "Hige o Soru. Soshite Joshikousei o Hirou." and "Domestic Girlfriend" over this anime.

Just watched the movie at the theater in Japan today.

I haven't read the manga, so my review here is just based from what I have watched on the TV series and the conclusion of the story showed at the movie.

Full spoilers ahead.. be warned.

The movie is pretty long, 2 hours, and takes place at the school's festival and it's divided in 5 acts, each one showing the 3 days of the festival (from start, to end) and each act taking one of the sisters' story with the main character (Futaro) on each day of the festival. At the start all sisters asks to Futaro to say which one he will pick, and Futaro says he will give the answer on the last day of the festival. Therefore, on each act, you see one of the sisters declaring her love and stealing a kiss from him.

The movie itself is enjoyable, you won't get bored, but some parts feel rushed or meaningless. For example, the biological father of the sisters sudden appears to meet with Itsuki, saying he is her real father. That was really forced and it felt very dry. Why he was there? Why that moment? He had less than 5 min of screen time, and it ended just as a bad old guy without any emotion, I couldn't see any reason for this encounter to happen in the movie, it didn't add anything on the story. (to simplify the encounter: I'm your father / (itsuki) so what? / (father) you have to accept me / (itsuki) I don't, go to hell / (father) damn! Ok, bye) And what was the relation of Futaro's father with the sisters' step father and biological father? On the TV series they never showed any kind of relationship, and on the movie they didn't explain anything. Other meaningless character inserted on the movie was Futaro's friend from his childhood, the girl showed as if she was trying to guide Futaro into something (never explained) and then she just leaves the screen, I really couldn't see the purpose of this character on the movie (maybe on the manga there is some explanation?) About the end, Yotsuba ends being the chosen from Futaro. For me was kind unexpected, as there isn't much chemistry between her and Futaro. Btw, at the beginning Futaro says to Ichika he was planning to chose no one, but the sisters pressure him in making a decision and pick one of them, but all this pressure on him kind took all the emotional from the story. When he meets Yotsuba and tells he chose her, it was very dry and without any emotion at all. (it was like: I chose you, here are some chicken, lets eat together) And from this part to the end (around 40-30min I guess?) the movie try to justify why he choses Yotsuba, I guess his choice felt so unexpected and under pressure that even the writer though "why her?" , to use this much of screen time only trying to justify his choice. (Yotsuba is the girl that he met when he was a kid in Kyoto, but on the TV series, Yotsuba never showed interest in romance, she treated the main character the same as she treated other people around her) But I guess the main person to blame is the writer who made the main character so flat when is about romance. Futaro really never showed interest in romance, he never had this kind of chemistry with the sisters, he kind looked more like a "big brother" instead of a young age boy at puberty near girls. So we get this end where he is forced to chose someone only to end the story.

A lot of great talents joined this prodution, the soundtrack made by Hiroyuki Sawano is another master piece, as the background art made by Bihou's studio and the animation made by WIT studio.

The animation is very fluid, the pakour scenes are great, although sometimes the 3D objects on the background contrast too much with the 2D characters, which feels "un-natural" sometimes. Despise that ,it's a production where they really put a lot of effort and money, just it's really a pity they forgot to hire a good writer. Gen Urobuchi (the writer) did a good job on Puella Magi Madoka and Fate, but other scripts written by him really lacks quality (Goodzilla: Planet of the Monsters / City on the Edge of Battle / The Planet Eater were really awful movies) . It's sad to see a lot of money spent on great artists and they forget about the main role: the writer, the one who will write the story! There are so many good japanese writers, why chose the guy who didn't make a single good piece of work for the past 5 years? Why chose the guy who made that boring godzilla movies? (I still can't believe they made all the 2 sequels of that crap, lately studios really like to throw a lot of money on bad stories)

About the story (warning, spoilers ahead), is the standard type: 1.an anomaly happens (the world gets filled with bubbles with gravity getting crazy in some places, with Tokyo being the main city to suffer from this anomaly) 2. You have a non-sense opening animation as if it was a weekly TV show (why so many anime movies places an opening animation like if you were about to see a weekly TV show inside a movie that starts slow as this one?? It kind breaks the whole atmosphere from the introduction, and on this movie, the first scenes are slow peace, preparing the viewer for something deep and emotional that is about to begin) 3. Main character is saved by mysterious girl 4.main character falls in love with mysterious girl but she needs to go away to stop the anomaly 4.main character tries to save and bring back mysterious girl, but it all leads to an end questioning the existence of the universe itself (??? I wonder why so many Japanese movies tries to lead their stories into this non-sense philosophical questioning, which always leaves a dry taste on the mouth of who is watching the story).

In general, the movie lacks of good dialogues and chemistry between the characters. You see a lot of cool pakour scenes, but most of characters don't have good screen time or are just wasted in situations where it's difficult to make a bond with any of them and feel any joy or sadness from characters during the movie. When the mc meets the girl, she doesn't speak any words, but after a few days she is already speaking, and even with she talking, you don't see any good dialogue between her and the mc. The movie itself already spoils that is going to be a sad ending, but the lack of chemistry between the mc and the girl didn't lead to a single tear in the end.

Going about details, I couldn't see any reason for the pakour in the movie, as the movie explained that only Tokyo got collapsed with the bubbles, around it people where living their lives normal, and anyone could enter or leave the bubble that was surrounding Tokyo, so it wasn't a madmax post-apocalyptic world where people would have to compete in mortal games for food under their own savage lawns. On the mysterious girl, for some reasons that aren't explained, the girl starts to lose her body parts when she touches the mc, but this doesn't happen when she touches other people (why just him?). And It's so cold the relationship with her and other people around that there is a part of the movie where she loses her arm and no one asks about it!! (she lost her arm and the mc doesn't give a thing(!!) and he also goes confess his love to her, ignoring her condition, as well other characters when they see her). The scientist woman who took care of her at first time, don't even ask about part of her hand being infested with some bubbles, the scientist only gives her a glove (they really don't make good scientists as old days, no one questions anything, just an useless character as most of characters on this movie). The mystery of the bubbles also ends without any explanation, you only see a shadow of what would be the mysterious girl's sister, but no explanation of why they came to earth, where they came from, why the mysterious girl have to go back (she only receives a vision that really felt like the eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings, as the shadow of her sister lol) and why they messed the whole planet with bubbles(JJ Ambrams feelings here: "mystery box" that starts with a lot of questions and it all ends in an immensity of nothing, just pure wasted time). And I also want to point to the irony of the mc going to rescue the girl, by "rescuing" her it ends that he is the one who finishes killing her as she starts to melt down into bubbles because he touched her, and seems he didn't notice it even after she dies.(to see how much brainless the main character was, as for the other characters as well)

Overall, 10 for the animation art and music, 5 for the story, direction and world building.

The animation and japanese dub are great, I really enjoyed the first episode, had kind "inuyasha" feelings on it, with the main charc. And her partner hunting bad deamons.. but it was just the first episode.

The rest of the anime has almost none character development, and even with the "supernatural" element on the world building, the "supernatural" is just a "decoration" on the story. The rest of the episodes are just the girl talking with someone to try to "convince some truth" about police cases of murdering until the characters who have doubt about the case have their doubts sanates. You can expect a lot of never-ending dialogues on this anime and just it.

Typical harem-type Japanese love comedy, where the girls fall in love with the protagonist, in this case, the protagonist is already in a relationship with one girl, and he really asks his girlfriend to have another girlfriend and he starts to date and live together with both girls.

The girls are enjoyable and have good personality, but they really don't have much chemical with the main character (I really can't see any reason for the girls to like him), the main character really lacks some charisma (his personality is really flat which makes him not much of an enjoyable character), which makes me only 5 stars to this show.

I really love Trollhunters series, didn't enjoy much 3Below, but I enjoyed a lot Wizards.

Now comes to this movie.. the animation and action scenes are really well made, but the story is very fast paced, it doesn't give much time for who is watching to take a breath and enjoy some build up of the story. And I also felt as if I was watching Ready Player One, as this time it really had a lot of cliché scenes from other movies, from MIB, Disney's Hercules to Pacific Rim(well, this last one is also made by Del Toro, so I guess only this one is acceptable)

Now comes for the ending...*spoiler alert* what terrible ending. They really had to use time traveling.. time traveling is the kind of story telling really hard to manage into a satisfactory ending, most director fails when using it.. and this time is no different. It just killed all the gains, sacrifices, memories, sadness and happiness from every character along their journey that we watched over during this years. Only to start over to have Tobby to be the one to receive the amulet and become the trollhunter.. and I ask, why?? Why they will have a better ending if Tobby becomes the trollhunter? Tobby dies at the end with honor, Jim wanted to save his friend, but going back to the past and turn him into the trollhunter, what will make it good? All bad trolls will start to go hunting Tobby and he will have all the bad experiences that Jim had, this end really doesn't make any sense at all.

I just watched the first part released on Netflix, and it was horrible. I have been a fan of Saint Seiya since my childhood, and this new show from Netflix lacks a soul. The director and writers doesn't seems to have any kind of love or passion for the original Saint Seiya.

They didn't just changed Shun into a woman, they also changed many characters' personality on this new series. They tried to create some kind of new story, mixing classic scenes/moments from the original Saint Seiya, and it resulted in a very rushed story without much connection with each scene. Sometimes it was also kind disrespectful with the lore of the original Saint Seiya. This new world that the writers created for this Saint Seiya lacks a lot of consistency.

Since the release of the Lost Canvas, Saint Seiya's fans haven't seem much good quality production of this franchise, which is really a pity. (Omega's story and production was pretty bad, the movie released some years ago also had it's story rushed, and the new Saintia Shou's series was a very cheap production). I really wish they could make a new season of the Lost Canvas using the same studio and crew who worked on the first seasons, instead of making this unnecessary reboots and cheap productions.

For true Saint Seiya's fans, I recommend to stay away from this one.