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The Midnight Gospel (2020)
A pseudo-intellectual's wet dream.
This is probably the hardest show to sit through that I've ever seen. It's an animated podcast. Original idea right? That's about where the charm ends. Basically, the showrunners took a podcast where people who have no clue what they're talking about talk about pseudoscience and really bad philosophy, and then they animated it. The people speaking are talking about "serious" stuff while wacky Rick and Morty shenanigans unrelated to to what they're saying happen in the animation. The show is hard to take serious in that regard. This show is for people who have done LSD or DMT once or twice and tell you that they met God, or for people who say stuff like "there would be world peace if everyone would just smoke weed lol." Not impressed.
Ajin (2016)
A decent little show... with some issues.
I want to start by saying this show had a pretty unique concept and was overall really fun to watch. Animation style as well. However, where this show falls flat is the character development.
The show doesn't do a good job about treating its characters like real people. Take the main character, Kai. His character development makes no sense at all. He constantly jumps around. He seems like an amazing person at the beginning of the show and then in the next few episodes, someone says "he doesn't seem genuine..." and this one piece of dialogue changes his character from a normal kid to completely cold and calculated. Like the snap of a finger. And then he spends most of the rest of the show this way, and then in the last few episodes acts like he cares again, randomly and with no explanation. The show is similar with its treatment of other characters, with some of their motives being unexplained or down right making no sense at all. Some characters are static and just show NO development. This is the main failing of the show.
The plot also jumps around a bit, with usually not enough real time in between stages of the show for those jumps to make sense. In the blink of an eye for example, a guy who has been an enemy for half the show is now an ally in a single 3 minute scene.
Lastly, the concept of not being able to die? That's so cool right? And the ability to summon a shadow that can fight? Nice. But the show doesn't bother explaining how this works, or how and why this is happening to people. A super huge missed plot opportunity, unless they plan on addressing it later, which seems unlikely at this point. Pretty much "yeah this happened to people and they exist" and that's all we get after two seasons.
I know it sounds like I hate it, but I didn't at all; it was still worth a watch. The action was super fun. Story was still unique. I personally liked the visuals too.
Pros:
-cool animation style (for me, at least)
-interesting plot
-fun action sequences
Cons:
-less than average character development
-insufficient explanation for character motives
-less than average pacing
-completely unexplored elements of the show
Final verdict: 7/10
Midsommar (2019)
Very unpopular opinion: I didn't like this movie, here's why.
This is certainly a "good" movie. It's got great cinematography, good acting, a good soundtrack, and some interesting tricks and gimmicks.
HOWEVER
I have never felt like my time was more wasted than this. This movie relies on making the viewer VERY uncomfortable by the use of very suspenseful music, strange camera angles, weirdly sexual cult themes, and gory visuals. That's all the movie really offers. There's no meaning to be gained from the movie. You don't come out feeling anything but dread. Some may be into that, but apparently I certainly am not. It's also VERY slow burning. It takes extremely long for pretty much anything to happen. I feel like I gained literally nothing from this movie.
Tau (2018)
A fun movie for what it is.
This movie seems pretty divisive and I don't know why. It's not an amazing movie by any means, but it's certainly a unique and fun experience with really great visuals.
The whole "smart house becoming self aware and wanting to be human" isn't exactly new, but nonetheless, this rendition of that trope is really unique here. Obviously, unique doesn't always mean good, but what it translates to here is sheer fun. I stayed interested the whole way through.
The only real complaint I have about this movie is that many scenes were pretty rushed, especially concerning Tau's progression to self awareness (the last thing that should ever be rushed).
Otherwise, a fun movie. Decide for yourself.
Naruto (2002)
Great show, but how do you manage to have filler in the main story?
I was late to the Naruto show. I can say it is one of the better anime I've seen. The story is original, and well written for the most part. In the dub, most of the voice actors actually sound believable and true-to-character. It's worth a watch if you haven't already, but be warned of two things.
Naruto is a very annoying character in the first one or two seasons. This isn't this due to him simply being a loud immature kid. That would have been alright. What is REALLY annoying is how much he says the phrase "believe it!" He says it in contexts that make no sense. At all. He also says it way too many times per five seconds for any sort of comfort. It gets grating. Thank God they stopped that mid-season 2 or so; I've no clue what the dub artists were thinking with that translation of "dattebayo" which really should've been something like "y'know?"
The most aggregious thing however is the amount that flashbacks are used as filler. It's not really exaggerating to say that a 4 episode long battle with have a single episode's worth of flashbacks back to previous episodes you've already seen. Picture this. The main character is about to get hit really hard. They have .03 seconds (if that) to react. Now it's time to have a 5 or 6 minute long flashback (of something that you've already seen) in that split second. I also recall an episode that showed me the SAME flashback twice in the same episode. Some flashbacks I've seen 5 or 6 times at this point.
Despite these two things, I think the show is worth a watch. It's a classic. And notwithstanding those issues it's done really well. The characters are all really fleshed out and mostly sympathetic, barring a few characters here and there. There is a lot of actual filler, technically speaking, but it doesn't feel like filler because it builds on the main story. If you haven't seen it already, I still recommend it.
Overlord (2015)
A good, if flawed anime.
I'll start by saying it's a good watch overall. While the whole "being trapped in a video game" thing is tired, this book adaptation does well in execution. The characters are well acted, the story lines interesting and complex (usually in a two-faced political sense), and most characters likeable.
Now here's where the show falters for me:
1. Much of the show (especially the second season) actually kicks Ains's story to the side to spends several episodes on side characters, building them up as their own protagonists, only to have Ains kill them off and never be
mentioned again, essentially wasting the viewer's time and emotional investment.
2. Ains's (the protagonist) allies, the NPCs him and his friends created, constantly worship him. It was humorous at first, but after three seasons, this gets very, very grating. Some scenes are literally just stroking the ego of the main character, who is in actuality a huge turbo virgin who never leaves his house.
3. To use a video game term, being a shut in and doing nothing but leveling up and getting the best items, Ains is way too OP (overpowered). The show only gets its value by expounding upon the backstories of its side characters that exist within the video game, the ones that aren't Ains or the NPCs who serve him. His fights are somewhat boring, because again, they only serve to stroke the main character's ego.
3. Ains is wholeheartedly, unapologetically evil. Something went wrong when he was trapped in the game and he lost any humanity he had. Sometimes the show will build up a character's backstory for several episodes only to have Ains or his NPCs kill them brutally and anticlimactically. Or have them tortured and then killed. Or enslaved. The show does a good job to make sure you dislike its protagonist, and root for his enemies. Maybe that's by design, but it's not for me.