Julia's Reviews on Various Media

Juliko · Sep 1, 2024

This review was written on January 17th, 2024.

Rating: 80/100

Alright, let's get the elephant out of the room, the only reason anyone even heard of The Yuzuki Family's Four Sons is because of the fact that for some reason, when the first episode went up on Crunchyroll, it was saddled with absolutely abysmal English subtitles. No, I'm not kidding. The subtitles were not only extremely literal, with zero syntaxes, punctuations, and sentence structure, there are times when sentences are repeated for no reason, and they even went as far as to straight up translate some characters' names. It was especially bad because other streaming sites in other regions had their own English subtitles for it, but they were nowhere near as bad as the ones Crunchyroll got. Luckily, the ensuing backlash convinced Crunchyroll to reach out to the original licensor to give it a newer, better translation, and the subtitles have since been updated. It is a shame this is how people had to get introduced to the series, because The Yuzuki Family's Four Sons is honestly a very sweet, heartwarming, low-key drama that deserves more appreciation than it gets.

The Yuzuki family consists of four brothers: 23-year-old teacher Hayato, stoic middle schooler Mikoto, his younger, more rambunctious and hot-headed brother Minato, and six-year-old Gakuto. A couple years back, their parents died in an unspecified accident, and the loss completely upended their lives. This left Hayato to become the closest thing his three younger brothers have to a parent, with all the responsibilities that come with it: Cooking, cleaning, paying the bills, making sure the kids are in school, and so on, on top of his own teaching career. The younger three are also made to mentally grow up faster than they should, because as much as they want to ease the burden on Hayato, they're still kids at heart. Through growing pains and emotional ups and downs, the four Yuzuki brothers stick together and try to make the best of things, with help from their neighbors the Kirishimas and their friends.

I haven't read the original manga for this, though after seeing how good the anime is I kind of want to now, so I don't know how the manga's art translated into the animation medium here. For the most part, the animation can be rather stiff, with a lot of still shots, walking scenes are rather stiff at times, and bodies don't always move naturally. Thankfully, what the show lacks in consistent animation at times, it manages to make up for with experimenting with different animation styles at times and creative storyboarding. You know how sometimes live-action footage or backgrounds were used in Bocchi The Rock to depict the main character's mental state or for the sake of a joke? The Yuzuki Family's Four Sons does the same thing, though primarily for the former. I don't know if it was done just to save on the budget or a deliberate artistic choice, but if its the latter, I thought it was used pretty well. I did like one scene in episode 8 where Minato and Uta accidentally eavesdrop on Gakuto's conversation with Waka and Kojiro and are so freaked out they run through town screaming their heads off, and they're running through live-action scenery, which was pretty funny. The ending theme even shows the characters as tiny wooden figures in a lit up toy house, which is just cute as hell. The series also experiments with other animation styles at times: In episode 2, a young Mikoto's simmering frustrations about being the middle child and resentment towards Minato getting all the attention are depicted as shaky child drawings, and Gakuto's few memories of his parents are drawn in charcoal. While the animation for this show isn't the best, its certainly not the worst, and good directing on the director's part helped to keep it afloat. I don't have as much to say on the soundtrack, but it was nice and did its job well.

But it's really the show's writing that helps it shine, especially around its characters. This is a quiet family drama at heart, and all four of the brothers have their own unique personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and ways of coping with the events that followed their parents' untimely deaths. Every episode is told from a different brother's point of view, rotating between the four of them depending on who's the focus. As far as character development goes, Minato and Gakuto get the lion's share of it since they tend to get more screen time compared to the other two, though that's not to say Hayato and Mikoto don't get anything to do. The series itself has a fairly small ensemble of characters and does an admirable job of getting you to care about all of them and be invested in them and their plight. I'll admit, I absolutely love Kojiro and his friendship with Gakuto. As somebody who often befriended people outside my age range throughout my childhood, I could totally buy their chemistry. I do feel Mikoto got the short end of the stick when it comes to character development though, because not only is he completely defined by his love for his brothers, Minato in particular, other than in episode 2 (Which mostly consists of a flashback, mind you), he comes off as way too perfect and flawless a lot of the time, with the show itself even joking that he's basically a little Buddha. One can argue that he fixates on his brothers as a coping mechanism for his grief around his parents' deaths, but I don't think that came through very well in the anime. This might have been remedied in the manga, but since the English scanlations haven't gotten very far, I don't know how true this is.

There are some other little things about the show that felt really off to me, though they didn't hurt my enjoyment of it in any way. For one, something about the way Minato's face is drawn just looks...off to me. I don't know what it is, but his constantly squinty-looking eyes and his round face don't feel like they go together. But I know it's like that in the manga too. Second, this series seems to believe children between the ages of 3-6 are able to talk and think at a higher maturity level than they're actually capable of doing. I don't interact with children much in my daily life, but my cousin has a young daughter who's turning 5 this year, and I've seen her enough to know that children around the ages of 3-6 don't speak in perfect, full-on sentences that feel more in line with someone in the 8-12 range would say. This was present in episode 2 with the young versions of Minato and Mikoto, but it's especially prominent with Gakuto, as he's canonically six years old, but constantly talks like he's a very well-spoken adult, with perfect sentences, complete with worrying about how his actions could cause trouble for others, which is completely unrealistic for a child his age. Don't get me wrong, I love Gakuto, he's a cutie and deserves all the love in the world, as do all the other characters in the show, but I almost feel like the series is idealizing him. I'm no expert on child development, but most kids that age tend to speak in short, slightly broken sentences that rely on dumb child logic. Just watch any video featuring a kid aged 3-6 on Facebook, YouTube, or whatever for further evidence on this. Hell, I myself didn't start speaking verbally until age 6 because of being autistic. I honestly do have to question what Shizuki Fujisawa's views on children are, because they really need to do a better job at portraying young children more accurately.

In all honesty though, these are just minor nitpicks in the grand scheme of things, because I do genuinely like this show and think it absolutely deserved better than the awful first impression the bad subtitles it was saddled with gave it. The Yuzuki Family's Four Sons lives and dies by the strength of its writing and emotional honesty, and while it wasn't able to give all its characters their due, it managed to make me feel for these dumb little goobers and get invested in their lives and want them to be happy. I also appreciate that their parents' deaths aren't simply used for one-off cheap angst but make it the driving force behind literally everything they do for both themselves, each other, and their peers, so it never feels like it's used for melodrama or emotional manipulation. To me anyway, your mileage may vary. But yeah, if you're hankering for a low key family drama that manages to tug at your heartstrings without the overwrought sentimentality that goes with it but still manages to make you feel warm and fuzzy, definitely give The Yuzuki Family's Four Sons a try.

Juliko · Sep 2, 2024

Ohhhh man, this movie. This review was written on April 25th, 2024.

Rating: 35/100

Okay, I know you're looking at that rating and thinking to yourself "What's so bad about this children's movie that you feel the need to rate it so low? Maybe you shouldn't be watching kids stuff if you're just gonna hate it!" But here's the thing: I had no idea that The Klutzy Witch would be as bad as it turned out. If anything, I was looking forward to it! Also, there's a lot of kids stuff I watched that I legitimately enjoy, some I love to death, others not as much. I watched the first Cardcaptor Sakura movie a while back, for the first time in years, and it didn't bring the house down, but I enjoyed my time with it. Some of my favorite shows and movies of all time are aimed at kids, and a lot of that is because the media by themselves respected their audience, not talking down to them and respecting their intelligence. The Klutzy Witch: Fuka and the Witch of Darkness is not only just a generic, juvenile children's movie, it actively goes out of its way to insult its audience's intelligence at every turn.

Based on the children's book series by Satoko Narita, the series focuses on Fuka, an energetic apprentice witch and the princess of the Silver Castle. She aspires to be just like her elegant mother, Leia the Silver Queen, but there are several problems with that: Not only does she absolutely suck at even the most basic of magic spells, she sucks at school in general and can't do anything right no matter how hard she tries. Even support from her friends Karin, the princess of the Green Castle, and Chitose, the youngest prince of the Blue Castle (Get used to all the color coded kingdom names, because they're present throughout), can't seem to cut it for her. One day, while she's lamenting both her latest blunder and the fact that she doesn't know who her father is, a little girl named Lilica demands Fuka take her to a sealed off room, browbeating her into doing so. When they get there, Lilica slaps a bracelet onto Fuka, and said bracelet awakens the evil Megaera, the Witch of Darkness, who transports Fuka and her friends to a spooky realm with plans to take over Fuka's body and defeat those who defeated her in years past. The trio must work together to defeat Megaera and save their realms from the forces of darkness.

Normally a simple story like this wouldn't be too bad. Stuff like The Worst Witch, Little Witch Academia, and Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure have done stuff like this before with varying degrees of success. I'm not kidding you, The Klutzy Witch seems intent on doing everything that you shouldn't do when making a story like this. For one thing, this movie's writing is extremely juvenile and condescending in that the movie relays every single bit of important information via telling over showing. Rather than having the audience learn about the characters organically, the movie just info-dumps their personalities to us via voice-over narration, which would normally be fine if this was done once, like in the beginning, but the movie does this several times throughout, even right in the middle, going so far as to just...explain how these people know each other rather than letting the audience deduce that themselves! Seriously, every iteration of My Little Pony besides G3 was never this patronizing!

This even extends to the characters, who aren't so much characters as they are cliche plot devices that spout moralizing dialogue about the power of friendship and act according to what the plot demands. Fuka suffers the worst of this because all throughout the movie, she's literally nothing but a damsel in distress who not only never manages to do anything on her own, but every time she's in some danger, something or someone, usually a Deus Ex Machina that comes right the fuck out of nowhere, always has to rescue her or do everything for her. No, I'm not kidding, she gets in trouble and rescued by someone a grand total of six times in this! Six times, all in the span of the movie's one-hour run time! Yes, I counted! Mary Jane Watson in the Spider Man movies ain't got nothing on Fuka. And the few times she manages to do something don't even feel earned because she only gets good at magic because of random Deus Ex Machinas that fall into her lap that make her suddenly awesome at magic because hurr-durr power of friendship wins the day. There are some characters who flat-out appear out of nowhere such as Keith, and even one character, a green haired boy with a cat, who only appears in one scene and then never again! Why even put that kid in there if you're not even gonna use him for anything?! Even the villain's motivations are extremely weak and juvenile.

The movie can't even make its premise make any lick of sense. For one, the movie claims that Fuka is supposedly cursed because she can't use magic as well as everyone else, with Fuka herself even sympathizing with Megeara because she thinks they share similar circumstances. But this falls completely flat because the movie never shows Megaera being anything but evil until the last five minutes, and it can't even be bothered to show her backstory. Furthermore, Fuka isn't cursed, she just sucks at magic, and every person in this movie would much rather punish her and berate her for not knowing how to control her magic rather than, y'know, actually make an attempt to help her control it, which isn't the same as being cursed. Plus, Fuka has friends, so any claim Fuka makes that she was also shunned also falls flat. So not only does this movie not know how to handle its characters or premise, it just throws away plot beats as quickly as it introduces them. For example, when Keith meets up with the trio, Chitose acts like he doesn't want to be anywhere near the guy, implying he's probably racist towards those in the Black Castle (Gee, that totally doesn't have unfortunate connotations in any way whatsoever, now does it?), but this aspect of his character is never elaborated on nor explained. Finally, for as much as the movie makes a big deal about Fuka wanting to learn more about her dad, in the end, she doesn't learn anything about him and the whole thing is just...dropped with no real resolution whatsoever. Considering that this movie is only an hour long, The Klutzy Witch really could have benefited from another half hour just so it could actually expand on this stuff. The ending is also just a really cheesy, cliche, mealymouthed resolution that relies on the power of friendship to magically fix everything because we can't bother to have actual stakes, riiiight?

And honestly, the animation isn't much to write home about either. The characters all have the same face and the action scenes aren't all that impressive either. The movie's budget doesn't look much different from a TV show, which is weird because Production IG usually puts out pretty good animation for whatever they make. This is not one of them. Now, if all of this was all that was wrong with The Klutzy Witch, I would have rated it somewhere between 55-60 out of 100, and that's being generous. It would have just been another generic children's movie that doesn't have much substance, but I would have left it at just that...but then the movie had the gall to completely obliterate what little goodwill I had for it by shoehorning in a FUCKING PSEUDO-INCEST REVEAL IN THAT LILICA WANTS TO MARRY HER ADOPTED BROTHER!!!! THE FUCK?!? Why movie?! Why the fuck would you just throw in a completely unnecessary pseudo-incest moment like that?! Not only does it not add anything to the story, it only makes Lilica (when she's not possessed by Megaera) an even worse character and leaves a pretty big black stain on what should be an inoffensive children's movie!! God, whose bright idea was this? Because I want to deck them so hard.

Speaking of Lilica, now that I think about it, a lot of what happens in the movie isn't even Fuka's fault at all. The movie reveals that everything is Lilica's fault, because the only reason Megaera managed to possess her is because Lilica happened to be flying around Silver Castle (With dialogue implying that she left Black Castle without permission) and just happened to be Megaera's target. Lilica, while under Megaera's possession, pretty much pressures and browbeats Fuka into wearing the bracelet that kept Megaera sealed, literally shoving it on her wrist, and is Megaera's meat puppet throughout the entire movie. But even after she's freed from Megaera's control, she's not only revealed to be an annoying tsundere who hates Fuka because how dare her brother Keith be interested in a girl that's not Lilica, she doesn't even acknowledge her own part in all of this and flat-out escapes punishment, with Fuka taking the blame for everything! That's...really messed up, and a pretty bad message to put in a kid's movie: "It doesn't matter if you were forced to do something because someone pressured you and were victimized by someone else, the fact you did this bad thing at all is bad, so you need to be punished and face the consequences while the person actually responsible walks scot-free! La dee da!" Good lord...

Man, I really wish I didn't hate this movie. I wanted so badly to like this. But I really can't mince words here: This is one of the most patronizing, insulting, condescending, and downright juvenile children's movies I've ever seen, though it's nowhere near as bad as A Troll In Central Park in my opinion. If you want good media about clumsy kid witches, just watch The Worst Witch, Little Witch Academia, The Owl House, or even Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure. All of those are far more worth your time and are way better than wasting an hour on The Klutzy Witch.

Juliko · Sep 10, 2024

This review was written on September 2nd, 2024.

Rating: 85/100

What's with all these anime about girls making rock bands? Did Bang Dream start this new trend? And what's this? Toei is putting their hat into this pile as well? Why the hell not?! Sure, one could argue that Bang Dream started the trend of companies making shows about girls starting up bands, but the runaway success of Bocchi The Rock was apparently enough to convince others to jump on the bandwagon. Yes, that pun was intended. So when a promo for a show called Girls Band Cry popped up, with Toei listed as the producer for it, many decried it as just a knock-off made to ride the coattails of Bocchi The Rock's success. Then it was revealed to be a 3D CGI anime, making people think it was just going to rip off Bang Dream. Many were quite dismissive of the show, me included...but then Girls Band Cry actually aired, and people's opinions on it did a complete 360, for damn good reason. Not only was the CGI surprisingly good, but the writing and characters were much better quality than even other shows airing in that exact same season (Three of which were also shows about girls focusing on music, Sound Euphonium season 3, Whisper Me a Love Song, and Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night). I was late to the GBC party, only just now finishing it and...yeah, I agree, this show is awesome.

Life hasn't been going well for 17-year-old Nina Iseri. Bullying in school and being betrayed by her friends and family have left her so jaded that she decides to strike out on her own to prove to everyone else that she can live by herself and be independent. The only thing keeping her going is her favorite band Diamond Dust, mainly one particular song. But life in the big city is a new adventure for Nina, one she is woefully unprepared for. While struggling to find her apartment, she happens upon the very person who wrote her favorite DD song, Momoka Kashiwagi, an ex-DD member who left the band due to internal conflict. The two of them quickly bond of their shared love of music and troubled pasts, deciding to form their own band to use as an outlet to unleash all their pain, rage, and raw emotions into. Three other members join their band afterward, and with that, Togenashi Togeari is ready to take on the music scene! But forming a band isn't all sunshine and rainbows, as all of them face their own hardships and struggles on top of managing the band and trying to break into a scene that's already dominated by more popular competition.

First off, let's talk about the thing most fans of GBC tend to notice right away: the animation. As far as I know, this is the first time Toei has ever animated humans in entirely 3D CG, and most of the time, CG models of people made for TV are criticized for how stiff and uncanny it can feel compared to 2D animation. Even well-known studios like Sanzigen and Orange had their growing pains with it before they really hit their groove with their 3D animation. Surprisingly, Girls Band Cry doesn't have this problem at all. Every 3D model of whatever character they're animating is expressive, smooth, and buoyant, with none of the usual stiffness you see in most CGI models, and the animators really took care in animating everything from subtle gestures to facial expressions, so it never gives off that uncanny valley vibe. The few uses of 2D animation are pretty good too, even by Toei standards...though I do have to question why they chose to mix both as opposed to just going with one style over the other. There are times when both styles of animation are used for a scene, and the differences between them are so obvious that they're almost jarring. It does make me question why Toei didn't just choose one animation style and stick with that as opposed to blending the two of them together. Individually, the differing animation styles are fine, but together they go about as well as mint and chocolate, which is an acquired taste for anyone, really.

But in all honesty, GBC's clashing animation styles are but a minor bump in the road, as what really holds it up is its writing. GBC prides itself as being a girls band anime that's much more down-to-earth, grounded, and cynical than its more optimistic contemporaries like early Bang Dream, or even idol series such as Love Live, lacking a lot of the saccharine cheesiness and over-the-top positivity that they embrace. For one, the main characters actually struggle to start their own band, and said band's members are a mix of teenaged dropouts and adults in their early 20s trying to balance both the band and part-time jobs to pay the bills and put food on the table. They're only able to play short gigs at whatever small venue will give them the time of day, and one girl dropped out of her former band and had to sign away the rights to her original song as a result, and has to watch as her now successful former band flourishes off her work. GBC wants to explore the often unforgiving realities of being a professional musician and the constant friction between making art and making money, and unlike, say, Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night, which would either resolve everything with a neat little bow or not at all, GBC more than succeeded on that front. I'm gonna be comparing these two shows a lot because they share the same premise and themes, but have completely different approaches in regards to their execution, and GBC succeeds in how it manages to pull it off whereas Jellyfish didn't. This really shows what good execution can mean for the overall quality of a story.

One aspect in which GBC succeeds over Jellyfish is how it writes its characters. Now, I admit, I only watched one episode of Jellyfish and read blog posts and reviews of the other episodes. But just watching the first episode was enough for me to see its flaws and knowing how they persist throughout the entire show, I'm not surprised. Jellyfish's characters never felt to me like three-dimensional characters or flawed, awkward human beings with their own unique strengths or weaknesses; rather, they felt more like a combination of what adults writing kids THINK kids are like and mouthpieces/props that just spout moralizing, melodramatic speeches about the show's messages without even an ounce of subtlety and trust in its audience, only acting on whatever the writers feel is convenient to make drama in the plot happen. GBC's cast of characters actually felt well-rounded and true to life, with all the drama and conflict mainly being fueled by angst and optimism being at odds with one another. It helps that any angst is nicely balanced with some fun physical comedy and absurd slapstick that manages to keep the show from being a slog to go through. It also helps that unlike Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night, the characters' actions and motivations are actually consistent and feel natural, and GBC actually understands the concept of "show, don't tell." These kids are flawed, awkward, and aren't afraid to riff on each other if someone deserves it, but their interactions felt believable and grounded, and most of them are well-realized and wonderfully layered.

I say most of them because while Nina, Momoka, and Subaru have strong character arcs, Rupa and Tomo admittedly got the short end of the stick, Rupa especially. The latter two don't get as much screen time or development in comparison to the other band members, and while we're given snippets of their backgrounds, they're not given any proper exploration of their pasts, nor do we see their journeys to come to terms with and overcome their personal traumas. Considering how open-ended the series is, with quite a few plot threads left unresolved, this isn't much of a surprise. Hell, even the creators of the show have said that since Nina's whole arc takes up so much time that the other characters don't get to do much. I also would have liked more background on Diamond Dust and their newest member Hina, who is the source of most of Nina's problems. For what it's worth, the show's creators have said that they do want to continue GBC's story, though there's no concrete info on what form that'll take. It was announced to be getting a cellphone game, but as of now, there's little information on it. Other, smaller nitpicks are the band's songs having a bass sound to it even though early on, Togenashi Togeari doesn't have a bassist, and Rupa's bass producing a sound it really shouldn't. Also, I liked the songs, but I admit I'm not really a huge fan of hard rock songs, even though that's Togenashi Togeari's whole schtick. That's not to say the soundtrack is bad, it's more personal preference for me than anything.

I'm not gonna go into the whole spiel about Toei refusing to put GBC on a streaming site and putting it up on Amazon to purchase, because everyone and their mother has done that already. For anyone who has an Amazon Prime account, you can buy the series digitally on Prime Video or the Microsoft Store for $8-10. I wound up buying it at its first price, around $30, on Amazon, but that's fine with me, because Girls Band Cry is absolutely worth the cost. While I admittedly like Bocchi The Rock a little more, Girls Band Cry is an excellent anime showing Toei at their best, sporting a great cast of characters, uniquely strong animation, stellar writing, and some head-banging songs. Is it any wonder it became so popular? Yeah, I think Girls Band Cry earned its popularity, and I really hope this isn't the last we see of these dumb chaos children.

Juliko · Sep 16, 2024

This review was just written today.

Rating: 68/100

I've been on a visual novel kick lately, especially upon finding out that 1. Nintendo Switch cartridges, and the console in general, aren't region locked, and 2. VNs I thought were available digital only had English translations on their Japanese cartridges. I've mainly kept it limited to games that don't have DLC, but I did have to make a Japanese Switch account just to play Atri: My Dear Moments since the Steam version just refuses to work, even on my new PC. Seriously, why are that and Adabana Odd Tales not on the American eShop?! Plus, I just found out Stella of the End has a Switch port coming, and I am buying that the minute it drops, with priority shipping! Anyway, I just finished a fairly recent VN that just came out, Everlasting Flowers. Its premise intrigued me, but it recently started a minor controversy in that its advertising made it seem like it was going to be a yuri/shoujo-ai romance, but people who played it found out that's not the case. I'm not one of those people who will drop something like a hot potato if it's not gay, as that's not why I consume media. I just look for stuff that seems interesting to me. That said...I really wish I could enjoy Everlasting Flowers more than I do. Normally I like stories like this, and I get what it's trying to do, but Everlasting Flowers completely stumbles on the road to getting there.

So what's Everlasting Flowers about? 17-year-old Mina Sakashita is having a hard time at school. She doesn't fit in at a school full of affluent ladies from rich families, and although she tries to make some friends, it all falls apart when a misunderstanding leads to bullying and ostracization. Things get so bad that she locks herself in her room, becoming a shut-in, convinced that she'll never have a place to belong. At their wit's end, her parents suggest that she apply for a live-in job at a seaside lodge called Rassembler. Although reluctant at first, Mina decides to make her way there, hoping this could be the start of something new with her life and finally put an end to her monotonous shut-in existence. She, along with another girl, Ran Seino, who also works at the lodge bearing baggage of her own, spend their summer together working at Rassembler, and maybe healing each other's wounded hearts. But they can't exactly keep running from their problems forever, no matter how much they want to keep working at the lodge where they made so many precious memories.

The first thing you'll notice about Everlasting Flowers is that it has tons of CGs. I mean it, TONS. I can't count how many there are, but the prologue of the game has so many of them that you won't see a single character sprite until 30 minutes in. Everlasting Flowers is nothing if not ambitious with its art direction, and that's one thing the game absolutely has going for it. Its artwork and CGs are absolutely gorgeous. The world of the game is colorful and inviting, but not so bright and saturated that it hurts your eyes, with clean linework and down-to-earth character designs that, while embracing the anime aesthetic, are still charming and anatomically proportionate. The backgrounds are also a highlight, and it's easy to see all the work that went into the CGs. I know nothing about the person who both directed and drew all the CGs for this game, Suzumori, but after this, I really hope they get to do more stuff like this and see more of their work. One detail I really liked is that the lighting and coloring for the character sprites changes to match the setting or lighting of whatever place they're in, like green when they're in the restaurant, pink when they're outside as the sun sets, or blue when out at night. The soundtrack is also very nice too, full of soft pianos and violins to sell the cozy vibe the game is going for. Also, hell yeah, Ceui sings the ending song! I mentioned in my Aoi Hana review that she seemed to stop singing anime songs and fell out of the limelight after 2013, but it turns out she's still working, just focusing more on game songs than anime.

Hooo boy, this part's gonna be tough. I will admit, the characters and how they're handled, especially in the beginning, is Everlasting Flowers' biggest weakness. Don't get me wrong, I know what the game is trying to do with them. The game's overall message is about overcoming trauma and facing your problems head on, and that's cool. I have no problem with that, as many stories before this have done the exact same thing. The game's small cast of characters should have been a fun, charming bunch to follow, but most of them aren't all that compelling. Ran, who is touted as the secondary main character, doesn't really change much throughout the course of the game, and her development is really predictable to the point where you can see where it goes from a mile away. Michiko, the owner of the lodge, is supposed to be strict but with a kind heart, and she has moments where she's genuinely interesting, but they don't come until much later, and she doesn't do much throughout the game's run time. I actually found Mina and Himari to be the most compelling and interesting characters, Himari for her backstory, her proactive personality, and the fact that she's actively pursuing a goal she wants to achieve and takes it seriously, and Mina for the fact that she's the only character who really truly changes and faces her flaws throughout the narrative. One would think that Ran would have been like this too, but whatever arc she could have had turns out to have been already resolved off-screen, so she stays the same from beginning to end, which is a shame because I actually liked her backstory and would have liked to have seen how she overcame her issues and dealt with them.

Basically, out of all the characters, Mina is the most developed and fleshed out, and normally that's a good thing. But my biggest issue with the game is the methods in which the narrative makes Mina actually get this development. See, the core message of the game is that you shouldn't run away from your problems, that you have to face them and actually committ to changing in the long term as opposed to seeking short term solutions to dealing with your trauma, and that's fine! I like that! But here's the thing: That only works if the person in question actually makes that choice for themselves and receives support that actually helps them as opposed to just forcing them to do it when they're not ready. For example, if someone is afraid of spiders due to nearly dying from a spider bite but wants to overcome that fear, your first choice of action shouldn't be to lock them in a room full of spiders and expect them to just be able to handle it, as that'll wind up traumatizing them more. Dealing with trauma only works if the person in question actually wants it and receives the right support. As much as I like the idea behind Mina's character development, the path Everlasting Flowers makes her take to get there is just abhorrent to me. All throughout, Mina is constantly forced to do things she's not ready to deal with, by people who claim are there to help her, and her boundaries, trauma, and feelings are constantly ignored, dismissed, or downplayed. Mina can't bear to look at her school uniform because looking at it triggers school-related PTSD to the point where she has a full-on panic attack? Let's force her to wear it at her job, she's clearly just throwing a childish tantrum! Mina doesn't want to take a bath with complete strangers? Nah, let's force her in there! Mina doesn't want to wear a swimsuit? Let's strip her naked and force her to wear a super skimpy bikini! Mina can't bear to interact with other people because of her bad experiences? Sorry girl, you gotta go out there and talk to customers regardless of whether you can actually handle it or not!

Do you see what the problem is here? For a story that's supposed to be about Mina overcoming her trauma and facing her problems, none of it is ever through her own choice. It's always forced on her, and it's never achieved because she herself pursues it. The entire story consists of literally everyone around Mina treating her like she's some brat throwing a tantrum and ignoring all of her boundaries and experiences in the name of helping her face her problems, and the game treating all of this as a good thing. Uh, no. I can't with this. I'm not a licensed therapist or anything, but in real life, a lot of what the characters force Mina to do would actually hurt her more rather than help her. In order for someone to actually manage to deal with their trauma or heal from it, people who are supporting or helping them NEED to respect their boundaries, experiences, and feelings, and it has to be their choice whether they're ready to do it or not. Mina's trauma and experiences are constantly ignored or dismissed by others, even her own family, and I just find it abhorrent that Everlasting Flowers thinks that actively forcing her to relive her bad experiences when she's not in a state of mind where she's ready to do so is not only the best way to help her, but believes this method to be a good thing. This is the reason I don't buy Mina getting emotionally attached to the restaurant and the people she's working with to the point of seeing them as family, because these people have done nothing but ignore her boundaries and treat her like a spoiled child, ignoring her genuine trauma in the name of helping her get her act together.

All of this also detriments the story itself. I really want to like this game more than I do. Because the opening chapters make such a bad impression in regards to how Mina is treated, Mina going on about how she's come to love everyone there and how everyone loves her and have her best interests at heart just comes off as really hollow, not to mention making everyone who's not Mina and Sanami come off as complete hypocrites. It borders on emotionally manipulative, what with how the series claims to be about healing from trauma and how it's better to face one's problems rather than be stagnant and run away but goes about it in the wrong way. It feels like the first and second halves of the game are two completely different entities that just don't mix well together, or written by different writers who have clashing ideas on how they want to go about the game's themes and messages. It sucks because I normally like stories like this, but Everlasting Flowers' execution was just not up to par, and whoever they got to write this was just not up for the job. For what it's worth, this game is pretty short, going at about six hours max, or shorter if you want to turn off the voice acting (Which is a point in the game's favor. All the seiyuu here put their all into this one, especially Reina Ueda, Mina's voice actor).

Overall, Everlasting Flowers, for as much as it tries, just feels like a kinetic novel that's all style and not much in the way of substance, and that makes me sad because I wanted to enjoy this. If you like kinetic novels or wholesome games about girls hanging out and dealing with their baggage, feel free to give this one a shot. But there are other, better visual/kinetic novels out there, or even other media that deal with this subject matter better. Oh, and a PSA: Don't go into this expecting any explicit yuri/shoujo-ai/LGBT stuff, because there's no romance in this, and don't hate the game just for that reason.

Juliko · Sep 16, 2024

This review was written on March 26th, 2024.

Rating: 88/100

(According to MAL, this is my 570th completed anime!)

I say in a lot of my reviews that it often times doesn't matter if a piece of media's tropes and premises are cliche or overused, as these days, nothing is truly original anymore. There's really nothing inherently wrong with cliches in and of themselves. It's the execution that counts, and if you actually care about what you're making and manage to create interesting characters and a solid, engaging premise, people will like it regardless of how cliche its premise is. After the end of the fourth Ojamajo Doremi season, Toei needed something to fill the timeslot up for the next year, and they decided, rather than another magical girl series, that they'd do a historical shoujo adventure instead, in line with stuff like Hello Sandybelle and Lady Georgie. That anime was Ashita no Nadja, which was an oddity in the year 2003, as by that time, according to Justin Sevakis' article about the World Masterpiece Theater here, Japanese-produced shows that were set in Europe were going out of style. Which is honestly a shame, as even with the context Justin mentioned, a lot of these shows were quite amazing and made the most of what they were given. Nadja as a show is an original anime, not based on an existing property, making it even more of an oddity in 2003, and it did get admittedly low ratings from what I've heard, but the people who did stick around to watch it really liked it and have fond memories of it. I myself didn't even know this show existed until I came across this review of it, and I did watch the first episode and liked it, but couldn't finish it due to other obligations and because at the time of the blog post, the final quarter of the series didn't get completed fansubs. This is no longer the case, thankfully, and I finally found time to watch this. And yeah, I agree with the reviewer, Ashita no Nadja has no business being this good and this well-written. More series should aspire to be like Nadja.

But what's the story, you might ask? Taking place in the early 1900s, 12-year-old Nadja Applefield is an energetic, joyful girl living a happy life at an orphanage just outside of London. One day, her guardian, the director of Applefield House, gives her a suitcase full of luxurious things such as a dress, a diary, and an anonymous letter. Said letter drops a bombshell: Nadja's mother, whom Nadja once thought to be dead, is actually alive and that she was unwillingly placed in the orphanage when her mother's life was threatened by illness. Nadja barely has any time to process all of this, as the very next night, Applefield House is attacked by two burglars who are trying to steal Nadja's prized brooch, which holds the key to her true parentage. Nadja is saved by a mysterious protector, but Applefield House almost burns to the ground. She does manage to find work at a traveling circus, the Dandelion Troupe, and with their help, Nadja travels all across Europe in the hopes of learning the secrets behind her brooch and hopefully reuniting her mother. But that's easier said than done, as there are others who will stop at nothing to make sure Nadja never sees her mother, some of whom include members of her real family.

The base premise doesn't exactly scream "Watch me!!" and in the wrong hands, this show could have turned out either really bad or just a soulless rehash of other stuff of a similar nature that had come out before it. But the staff behind this anime turned out to be exactly what Ashita no Nadja needed. The first half of the series is fairly light-hearted and episodic, with Nadja and the troupe traveling across Europe, meeting interesting people, and helping them out whenever possible. The second half is where Ashita no Nadja as a series really shines, in which the overarching plot really kicks into high gear, manages to remain engaging throughout, delivers on all of the build-up, and the characters all undergo fantastic development. This is a series that absolutely knows what it wants to do and manages to deliver in every way possible. I especially need to sing praises for the villains in particular, who turn out to be far from your stereotypical cartoon villains who are just there to be incompetent idiots who can't do anything right. Most kids shows have the villains always lose against the heroes. Without giving away spoilers, the villains come up with a fairly simple plan to keep Nadja from meeting her mother, but not only do they actually succeed in their machinations, they manage to do so multiple times, and their schemes aren't the overly complicated kind that you'd find in stuff like Death Note or Sword Art Online. The fact that the villains succeed in their endeavors is actually shown to have palpable consequences for the heroes, but those consequences still manage to make sense when you take into account the setting and time period, so it never feels like it's trying to make things more convenient for itself. These scriptwriters really put a lot into making the story make sense from a logical standpoint while still having it be solid and engaging throughout, making sure every plot thread is consistent and followed up on. It helps that both the light and dark elements of the show manage to blend together wonderfully, and without leaning too heavily on one or the other.

For all the praise I just gave the villains, that's not to say our main cast of characters aren't worth giving flowers to. Every character from everyone in the troupe to even people who only appear in one episode are given their time in the limelight, have multiple sides to them, and feel fresh. Nadja in particular is a great character to follow, as while she is your typical cheerful girl who inspires people and gets along with everyone, she isn't shown as being perfect, and her cheerfulness is never taken to the sometimes saccharine levels of some Pretty Cure leads that would come later. Her trusting nature gets her into trouble plenty of times, and she can be childish and sulky at times, as is typical for any 12-13 year old kid her age. I saw another reviewer claim that Nadja comes off as more of a reactive, passive protagonist than an active one, and personally, I don't think that's true. Sure, there are times when Nadja gets in bad situations, and a lot of the time she does wind up getting saved by others, but there are just as much moments where Nadja does things herself and succeeds, so it's not like she's just a damsel in distress who gets dragged around by everybody else, especially one on the level of, say, that pink haired girl from Guilty Crown. I'd argue that Nadja is more like Liko from Pokemon Horizons in that while she doesn't do a whole lot because of both her age and lack of experience and knowledge of the world outside her orphanage, a lot of the major decisions in the anime are still up to her and she does step up when she sets her mind to something.

On the more technical front, the animation is your standard Toei fare, complete with its good and bad points. The character designs by Kazuto Nakazawa are unique and vibrant, with no two characters looking the same (Except for one instance that's intentional), and the actual animation fluctuates quite a bit. Some times the animation is kinetic and smooth, other times it re-uses stock footage of Nadja dancing because they don't want to animate new dance sequences each time. Remember in my Digimon Adventure review, I mentioned that sometimes, during a scene, the background characters are drawn with thick lines and whenever a prominent character is moving or zoomed out, they're animated with thin outlines that make it look like they don't blend well with the scenery? Nadja has this problem too. Let's not forget the frequent uses of CGI that clash very heavily with the 2D animation and just look...off. CGI ballroom dancers, really? But those are the only real problems animation-wise, as everything else is fine. The backgrounds are well drawn, and it's clear that the staff at Toei put a lot of care into researching Europe during the early 20th century and how it looked back then, even if not everything about it is accurate. One thing I noticed about the soundtrack is that its very reliant on classical music a lot of the time, even using public domain music such as Offenbach's Infernal Gallop/Orpheus In The Underworld aka the Can-Can, which is used several times throughout the show, along with Johann Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz. I'm pretty sure there are other ones I don't recognize. The actual soundtrack for the show is pretty good, and both the opening and ending songs are fun, upbeat tunes that fit the show perfectly.

But for as much as I want to praise Nadja up the wazoo, the show isn't perfect. For one, there are several aspects of the show that haven't aged well. In particular, two of Nadja's primary love interests are adult men, and there are a bunch of other adults who find themselves falling for Nadja, who is a 13-year-old girl. I don't think I need to go into this one. To be fair, it only goes as far as Francis kissing Nadja (And someone else but that's a spoiler), that's it, but it can still be a little uncomfortable. There's also one episode, episode 14, that has the rather...very sexist, very outdated, and very Japanese moral of "Tomboys need to be feminine in order to be accepted by society!" Also, Nadja always seems to meet the right people wherever she travels, especially in big cities where it'd usually be pretty unlikely to run into someone you know unless you're looking for them, and the series always has whoever she needs to meet with happen to be in the neighborhood. A little too convenient if you ask me, and it happens a lot throughout the show. Though to be fair, with how good the writing and story progression is already, the producers did have good intentions and made great use of what they were given to work with, so it wasn't like those conveniences were thrown in there for cheap plot-twists.

It's easy to see why people who watched Ashita no Nadja way back when love it so much. It's an incredibly solid series that manages to excellently deliver on build-up, characterization, and story progression, and ending with a conclusion that manages to be believable and satisfying while pushing the characters further. What flaws it has didn't kill my own enjoyment of the series any. Seriously, Toei, why don't you make more shows like this more often? The series celebrated its 20th anniversary recently, and a few years back, it even got a sequel novel that takes place a few years after the events of the series...though from what I've heard, the direction it takes some of the characters is rather suspect. Overall, I found Ashita no Nadja to be a fun, charming, pleasant ride from beginning to end, and hopefully more people will see it and give it the love it deserves. I kind of wish I had seen this when I was a child. I probably would have loved it. Here's hoping a certain company picks it up for a home video release in North America. Yoohoo, Discotek!! Oh, one other thing: DO NOT watch those two English-dubbed compliation movies, because they're just slap-dash mish-mashes of random episodes, and apparently the actual English dub is really bad. Stick to the series, as it's much more worth your time.

Juliko · Oct 3, 2024

This review was written on September 16th, 2024.

Rating: 75/100

Oh, Kanon. I watched the 2006 version of this anime back when it first aired and got fansubs, and while I did get a majority of the DVDs, I never managed to finish the English dub beyond the first few episodes due to other obligations. I wasn't sure if I'd ever go back to Kanon, even though I liked it. But due to...recent events involving the original visual novel, I decided it was high time I stopped putting it off and rewatch it. I wondered if my feelings for Kanon would change in the decades since I first watched it. I liked it back when I was younger, and rewatching it now as an adult...surprisingly, I still like it, even if I find other shows that came later to be better. The original visual novel from 1999 was Key's first solo foray into the eroge business after they split from Tactics, and it not only became a runaway success, but redefined the entire visual novel format. Toei did make their own anime adaptation of Kanon in 2002, but...I don't recommend watching it. It makes a lot of changes from the game and it did an absolutely terrible job at translating Itaru Hinoue's character designs to the silver screen. Thankfully, Kyoto Animation decided to do their own adaptation, hot off the success of their anime for Air, and sure enough, many consider this to be the better experience, me included, even if this version still has its own share of issues.

So what's the story, you might ask? High school student Yuuichi Aizawa used to visit his aunt Akiko Minase and her daughter, cousin Nayuki, in their quiet little town every holiday, but one year something happened and he left for seven years. When he transfers to Nayuki's high school, his memories of that time remain a blur. Upon his return he encounters a number of mysterious girls from his past who all need his help. Energetic taiyaki thief Ayu Tsukimiya is searching for a precious lost item she cannot describe. Quiet and serious Mai Kawasumi hunts demons in the school after dark. The childish tsundere Makoto Sawatari suffers from amnesia and has no place to go. Elegant, demure Shiori Misaka is estranged from her sister and never present at school due to a sickness. Finally, there's the lonely Nayuki, weighed down by rejection and tragedy. Yuuichi resolves to help them, but as he gets involved, he discovers that there is far more to the girls than meets the eye. Mystical happenings lie hidden in this strange town, tied to Yuuichi's forgotten past. In assisting the girls with their problems, Yuuichi must face his lost memories. What happened seven years ago, and why can't he remember any of it?

Do I really need to say anything about the animation here? KyoAni gave Kanon the exact same treatment they did for Air, which is give it the royal treatment in terms of both its character animation and actually translating the series' setting and character designs to the silver screen. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I never had any issue with Itaru Hinoue's character designs, and I still don't, with some exceptions, and that remains true here. Granted, while the original VN for Kanon came out before Air's did, the anime version was made a year after the anime adaptation of Air came out. Though unlike with Air, KyoAni was able to give Kanon the full 26-episode treatment, really allowing them to flesh out the characters and their individual arcs without rushing the pacing. Not only that, the staff at KyoAni clearly did their research when it came to the visual novel and made sure to retain a lot of important details like the characters' birthdays and having them take place at the right time, which is important since the game clearly takes place in the year 1999, the year the VN was made, over the course of about a month or two, I think. This is especially notable because the 2002 anime by Toei was pretty infamous for not only cutting out a lot of content to fit a 12-13 episode run time, but having some serious continuity errors.

I don't have as much to say about the soundtrack, as its nice and does its job, and the opening and ending, while not as good as Air's opening and ending themes, are pretty good. Plus, they're the same songs used for the game, so that helps. Now, something to keep in mind about the 2006 remake of Kanon is that the original VN came out a year before Air's, and the anime remake came out a year after the anime for Air was made. It's easy to think that Kanon came after Air if you look at just the anime for them, but you have to remember that Kanon the visual novel was the first truly plot-heavy, character driven VN that became popular. I haven't played the VN yet, but a lot of the game's hang ups have carried over into the anime, including the way the characters are written. It can be easy to dismiss all the characters, especially the girls, as walking talking moe cliches who lean really hard into their individual quirk, and I can agree that the series tries way too hard to make the girls cute, especially with their catchphrases. Ayu and her "uguu," Nayuki with "unyuu" (Which gets cut from the English dub), and Makoto's "auu!" got old after the first three times and definitely feel forced, and if you can't stand cutesy high pitched voices, you'll either want to put them on mute or watch the English dub, which makes the girls sound much closer to their actual age than like five-year-olds. Speaking of the dub, would you believe me if I told you this and Sasami Magical Girls Club were my introduction to Brittney Karbowski?

But problems with the characterization aren't limited to just their shoehorned in vocal quirks. There are several characters who I felt could have been utilized more. Poor Mishio Amano is literally just there to be an exposition dump in Makoto's arc and disappears after it's done, never appearing again unless its in the background. I also actually liked Kitagawa way more than I thought I would, and he spends most of the series being the put upon butt monkey even though he has quite a few moments where he really helps people out significantly. As far as the main ensemble goes, I think Shiori is the most well-realized character even though she's neck deep in the "girl is secretly dying from unnamed disease so please cry for her" trope. The main ensemble is okay, though their development is rather predictable and nothing that'll bring the roof down. I do think Yuuichi is the best out of the characters, not because he's a continuous wise-cracker, but because he's a flawed human being who made a lot of mistakes in his life, and Kanon's at its best when he's made to realize what an idiot he's been and learn from his mistakes. He's definitely a major step up from One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e's Kouhei Orihara for sure. What, did you really think I'd miss a chance to dunk on Kouhei Orihara? That absolute asshat deserves all the dunking!

For as much as I appreciate Kyoto Animation's efforts to tell the story of Kanon in a TV format, I think the plot suffered the most in the transition from game to screen. Then again, Kanon's plot in general isn't all that riveting. Yuuichi goes around helping various girls with their problems, complete with hearing their melodramatic backstories. I admit I didn't cry watching the show, and Kanon's main problem is that it clings to its harem roots too much. Several times, Yuuichi will befriend a girl and help with her problems, then drop them off at the hospital and move on to the next one, granted since the game's routes are standalone and focus on just one girl each, there'd be no real way to translate that into TV. There are also times when the show just forces drama just for the sake of it, the main offender being Nayuki's mother Akiko suddenly getting into a car crash. I'm sure this happened in the game, but even here, I felt like the creators were like "We need more drama! I know! Let's have Akiko get in a random car crash for extra tears!" There are a few more of these contrived plot twists that feel like they only serve to keep the story on the right track, rather than to get the best out of the characters (Like one character losing her powers after her arc is resolved. You know the one), not to mention the final episode ends on one HELL of a Deus Ex Machina that pretty much magically solves every single problem ever. Yeah, Key has always had a problem with wanting their audience to stretch their willing suspension of disbelief to ridiculous degrees, and Kanon seems to be the progenitor of that for them.

That's not to say everything about Kanon is bad. I actually enjoyed the lighter slice-of-life segments, I feel Makoto's arc was the best out of them, and the air of mystery was also pretty well-executed, along with all the other positives I mentioned earlier. I do feel Air and Clannad are stronger, more improved versions of Kanon, as their VNs came out after the latter, their anime adaptations also being stronger in terms of pacing, plotting, character development, and continuity. That said, even with the show's problems, I still enjoyed Kanon and found myself nostalgic for it, even if my attachment to Air is stronger. For what the anime adaptation does well, it really manages to succeed in creating a heartwarming romance series, and if you like stuff like this, Kanon will definitely keep you fed. But if you're not into moe stuff or Key properties, with all their quirks and melodrama included, Kanon probably isn't going to change your opinion. Kanon by itself isn't all that ground-breaking or outstanding. It's just a fine series, and one I'm glad I got to go back to.

Juliko · Oct 7, 2024

This review was written on September 27th, 2024.

Rating: 85/100

Man, I honestly can't believe it took me this long to finally finish watching Grave of the Fireflies in its entirety. I actually did watch this once before, way back in college. I took a class on how modern Japan was formed, and one of our assignments for that class was to watch two movies and compare/contrast them, this and The Flowers Of War. The other movie was about an American guy pretending to be a priest (or something, I don't remember) who was sent to China during World War II and witnesses the Rape of Nanking, but that's all I remember about it. Ironically, I actually finished The Flowers of War even though I didn't like it, but liked Grave of the Fireflies yet didn't finish it, though that was more due to other obligations than anything. I missed my chance to get the Sentai blu-ray and now that's both out of print and ridiculously expensive. That's what I get for not snapping it up when it was cheap. Luckily, Netflix put the subtitled version up recently, though neither the 1998 Central Park Media English dub or the Sentai Filmworks re-dub are on there. Why is that, I wonder? Still, I decided to finally sit down and watch it...and man, this movie really holds up in terms of depicting just how awful World War II was for everyone.

Based on the 1967 semi-autobiographical short story by Akiyuki Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies centers on two children, 14-year-old Seita Yokokawa and his 4-year-old sister Setsuko in the year 1945, when World War II was still raging all across the world. The firebombing of Kobe kills their ailing mother, and last they heard, their Navy captain father is out at sea. They go to live with their aunt, but she isn't too happy with having them around, constantly griping that they don't do enough to help around the house or contribute to the country. Unable to tolerate living under her roof any longer, Seita and Setsuko decide to try living on their own, moving into an abandoned bomb shelter. But no matter what Seita and Setsuko do to make the best of things and survive, they are beset by starvation and disease, met with apathy or cruelty by adults, and death lurks around every corner. World War II is cruel and merciless, even towards the innocent.

If you're going into this movie expecting cute Ghibli whimsy, you better throw those expectations out the window. Not only is Grave of the Fireflies down-to-earth and realistic, devoid of anything like magic or supernatural or so on, it's also the darkest, most bleak movie in their entire repertoire. People are shown actually dying or dead on screen without any kind of censorship or sugar-coating, and the movie itself doesn't have a happy ending. Hell, the movie literally opens with its protagonist dead on the streets, straight up telling you that you're gonna be in for a rough time. That said, having seen quite a few war movies, I can attest that Grave of the Fireflies is definitely one of the better executed ones. It's definitely the most well-animated one for sure, and considering this was the third movie Ghibli made, it's honestly a technical marvel even by eighties standards. This is the first movie that Isao Takahata directed for Ghibli, and it's easy to see that he has a strong knack for realism and little details that you won't find in any other movie, like how Setsuko acts like an actual 4-year-old with the way her body moves and how she behaves, or maggots completely covering the body of Seita's dead mother because her burns are so bad. Takahata doesn't waste a single detail here, both in the smaller slice-of-life moments and the harder-hitting war segments. I don't have as much to say about the soundtrack, as I definitely enjoyed it, but it did get a little too sentimental at times.

The characters are the most divisive point of the movie, as there's much discussion to be had about Seita and whether he's a good protagonist or not. Some say his actions throughout the film are understandable, while others say he's an absolute idiot who should have sucked it up so his sister could live. In all honesty, I'm of two minds on Seita as a character. Yes, the movie doesn't really gloss over the fact that Seita's actions did have a hand in his sister's death. He's a dumb teenager who made dumb decisions and was way in over his head, probably due to thinking he had to fulfill the role of the protector and the "man of the house." But really, what teenager HASN'T made dumb decisions at some point in their lives, even during war time? There were probably lots of kids like Seita during that era. Not everyone managed to survive World War II after all, and even if they did, they're bound to have been irrevocably changed because of it, whether through their own experiences or the actions they had to take and decisions they made. Desperate times can make people desperate.And while I can understand Seita's aunt wanting him to help out around the house a bit, I do feel the way she went about it was needlessly cruel, even if she might have had her own reasons for her actions. Besides, who's to say she'd treat them better if Seita and Setsuko even did help out more and "contribute to the country" as she kept whining for them to do? I can see both sides of the argument, but in regards to Seita, there's one thing I can appreciate about his depiction: Yes, he's overly prideful and doesn't always know when to give up, but I like that he's never portrayed as being mean. Usually, prideful people are portrayed as being arrogant, selfish, and think they're above everyone else, but Seita never acts like that. Besides, as flawed as Seita is, would you really prefer him being an uber perfect Gary Stu who does no wrong? That'd be super boring. Plus, you have to remember that Seita is a stand-in for Akiyuki Nosaka himself, who wrote the original short story out of guilt over not being able to save his younger sister during the war. All I can say about Setsuko is that she's a good depiction of a four-year-old kid of that era, complete with all the neediness and energy that a kid that age has. And man, props to Ghibli casting an actual four-year-old to play Setsuko. God only knows how difficult that must have been considering how four-year-olds tend to act.

My only real critiques for Grave of the Fireflies is that I wish the characters had been fleshed out more. For as much as I sympathized with Seita and Setsuko's journey, tragic as it is, I never felt like I really got to know them as people. I wish the movie had been maybe half an hour or an hour longer so it would have had time to flesh them out more, or maybe give a glimpse of what their lives were like before the war. I do find myself liking Who's Left Behind and In This Corner of the World better because both movies managed to do that, focusing hard on getting you to care about the characters before showing them going through the tragedies World War II brought on. Though that's not limited to just war movies, as I personally prefer everything that does that in general. That, and I wasn't really a big fan of the Setsuko death montage near the end. I found it to be a little overly melodramatic and unneeded. Yeah, I admit, I didn't cry at this movie, and I know you're thinking "What?! You didn't cry at the saddest anime movie ever made?! What's wrong with you?!" I personally found other movies to be sadder, but don't get me wrong, this isn't an indictment towards Grave of the Fireflies. I still really enjoyed this movie, and I'd definitely recommend it to people who love this sort of thing, or war movies in general. It's absolutely NOT for the faint of heart, for sure.

And before anyone asks, yes, I'm aware that Grave of the Fireflies as a movie only shows one part of Japan's side of World War II and not everything else about it, including Japan's war crimes. That very same college class I took went into detail about Japan's atrocities during the war and how afterward, every piece of fictional media they made adopted a hardcore victim mentality (i.e. always portraying themselves as the victims) while sweeping all their war crimes under the rug. There's definitely no denying that. But I do think there's value to be had in Japan's war movies, Grave of the Fireflies included. It doesn't try to glamorize the war, nor does it try to hammer you over the head with some kind of message. Many have argued that the movie was made to guilt-trip high school aged delinquents into respecting their parents and falling in line, but that claim has long since been debunked by Takahata himself in a lot of interviews, one of which explained that Takahata was a staunch critic of Japan's societal demand for absolute conformity. The only real message Grave of the Fireflies espouses is that...well, war absolutely sucks for everyone, doesn't give a moment's thought to all that suffer through it, and not everyone gets out of it alive. It's a war movie that you can interpret in any way that you want, and it's one of many that absolutely stands the test of time in my opinion. Grave of the Fireflies definitely isn't for everyone, but it's easy to see why it continues to be so well-regarded even now. I'm certainly glad I finally got around to watching it, and now that it's on Netflix, it might even reach further audiences.

Juliko · Oct 8, 2024

This review was written on October 5th, 2024.

Rating: 66/100

Man, it seems like visual novel adaptations are starting to come back. Not a whole lot compared to the previous decades, but the fact that some are still being made is nice to hear. I previously played and reviewed the original game for Atri: My Dear Moments, a little after an anime adaptation was announced. Short version: While I did enjoy parts of the game, I did feel other parts could have been improved upon, but it was a valiant first game for Aniplex.exe to start with. With the knowledge I gleaned from the game, I was curious as to how the anime would adapt it, especially since the game itself is a fairly short 10-13 hours. It's inevitable that long visual novels would need to leave things out in the transition from a game to the TV format, especially a 12-13 episode series. On the whole, I do think the anime adaptation for Atri succeeded in its goal of adapting the game to a TV format, but it did make quite a few changes from the game. Some I liked, some...not so much, and the ones that didn't work are the anime's biggest problems.

In the near future, a sudden rise in sea levels floods the majority of the world and ends human civilization as we know it, forcing humanity to eke a living on what little dry land remains. Natsuki Ikaruga, a boy who lost his mother and his leg in an accident some years earlier, returns disillusioned from a harsh life in the big city to find his old countryside home half-swallowed by the sea. Left without a family, all he has to his name is the ship and submarine left to him by his oceanologist grandmother, and her debts. His only hope to restore the dreams for the future that he lost is to take up an opportunity presented to him by the suspicious debt collector Catherine. They set sail to search the sunken ruins of his grandmother's laboratory in order to find a treasure rumor says she left there. What they find is not riches or jewels; but a strange girl lying asleep in a coffin at the bottom of the sea. The girl, Atri, is a robot, but is so expressive and human-like that she could easily pass for a real human being. As thanks for salvaging her, Atri declares that she'll serve as Natsuki's leg until the end of the summer. The time they spend together over that summer changes the both of them.

I won't go into every single change the anime made from the game, as that'd make this review way longer than it needs to be, and I won't belabor a lot of what I said in my review of the game. I'll stick to my usual format before going into the nitty-gritty, starting with the animation. TROYCA, famous for Idolish7, was picked to do the animation, and while they couldn't quite replicate the finer details of Yusano and Moto4's character designs, they make up for that with kinetic character motion and fidelity to said character designs. They did, however, succeed in bringing the game's backgrounds and setting to life without compromising on the details. I also appreciate that the animators gave characters who didn't have sprites in the game actual designs, so it definitely has that going for it. On the sound front, I definitely appreciate that the anime decided to make its own original soundtrack as opposed to just reusing background tracks from the game, with the exception of a few, with one of them being important to the plot. I wasn't a fan of the overly chirpy ending theme, but as someone who usually doesn't like idol songs, I really liked the opening theme, Nogizaka46's "Ano Hikari." I never skipped it every time I watched an episode, it's that good. Hikaru Akao is still annoying when she sings in her squeaky voice, though.

A lot of the changes the anime makes is rearranging some events to make them happen either earlier or later than in the game, which does make some sense considering this is a 13-episode anime as opposed to a 13 hour game. The characters and their respective development remain the same from the game, even if a lot of aspects that put them on the path to getting it are either changed, downplayed, or cut out. Unfortunately, a few changes I didn't like were removing huge chunks of several characters' backstories, with Natsuki being the biggest victim of this. While his personality and development are the same as in the game, some really important parts of his backstory are cut out completely, such as leaving the Academy due to a combination of his own arrogance and a teacher being ableist towards him, both of which form the backbone of his development. By cutting those parts out, Natsuki comes across as much more needlessly angsty and mopey potato-kun. On the opposite side, Catherine and another character are made to be much nicer, with their more questionable actions watered down compared to the game. The anime seems to speed-run through the slice-of-life parts just to get to the plot faster, and while I can understand why they did this, as many who played the game complained that the plot should have happened a lot earlier, they kind of diluted the parts of the game that were genuinely good, such as the whole arc about the kids building a generator for the school.

There is one change that I definitely liked. In the last third of a game, there's a new character who gets introduced named Yasuda, who hates Atri and wants to kill her. He's universally despised by fans of the game due to a combination of his appearance completely lacking any established build-up or foreshadowing so it feels like he comes out of nowhere, and for being a generic villain whose motivations are really weak and tenuous at best. The anime doesn't change his characterization nor give him more depth and nuance, but it does go out of its way to address the first issue with him in that they add in whole new scenes where he's not only going after Atri multiple times, he even goes after other characters directly and using different methods, whether it be appealing to their guilty conscious or straight up trying to kill them, ranging from shooting them or unhooking Natsuki's submarine to wash him out to sea. While I do wish Yasuda's backstory had been fleshed out more, or given a stronger motivation for hating Atri than what he has, I definitely appreciate the anime's attempts to make him a more constant presence and a genuine threat, and it seems like the manga is doing the same.

But there is one addition the anime made that I really, REALLY wish they hadn't. Remember how in my review of the game, I mentioned that I absolutely hated the scene where Natsuki slips and falls into Minamo's boobs because it felt like unnecessary fanservice? The anime removes that, thank God (As does the manga)...but it also adds in new scenes involving Atri being sexualized or offering herself up to Natsuki in what's clearly meant to be a sexual manner, when she clearly looks and acts like an elementary schooler! Like, TROYCA, did we REALLY need a scene where Atri flashes her nude body to Natsuki several times when she's wearing nothing but a bath towel? I mean, it's at an angle where we can't see her nude, but come on! The game at least kept it limited to Atri jokingly calling Natsuki naughty and jumping to conclusions before she gets conked on the head! It's like the show is worried that we won’t care about Atri (and her death flags) unless we’ve been assured she’s a potential sex object, and it does a disservice to the story’s stronger emotional beats. Who thought deciding to openly sexualize Atri MORE was a good idea?! Because it isn't! Basically, Atri the anime traded one form of unnecessary fanservice for another, and it just makes me cringe into a singularity.

It's honestly a shame the anime decided to implement a lot of those more questionable changes, because I did enjoy the rest of my time with this show, and I want to recommend it to people who don't want to play the game or are unable to for whatever reason. I like the animation, the music, the opening song, most of the characters, and some of the better changes Atri: My Dear Moments made. But the not-so-good changes leave a pretty big black stain on what on paper is still a fairly decent adaptation of Aniplex.exe's first visual novel. Personally, if you want the better experience, I recommend just playing the game, if you're able. The anime is fine if you're into it or can't play the game for whatever reason, but I really wish I could recommend it more enthusiastically.

Juliko · Oct 19, 2024

This review was written on July 2nd, 2023.

(This review covers both seasons one and two)

Rating: 77/100

Gundam has never been high on my priority list when it comes to anime. To date, I've only seen Gundam X, War In The Pocket, and both seasons of 00 (Excluding the movie), though as of today, I'm adding Gundam: The Witch From Mercury to this list. The reason I haven't watched many Gundam shows is that...well, I have a hard time keeping up with and comprehending hard sci-fi stuff and the technobabble they try to throw at you. Because of this, I originally had no interest in G-Witch at all, even when it was first announced. But then I heard my online circles talking about it and praising it up the wazoo...and hearing the news that it apparently became so popular that accompanying merchandise outsold pretty much every other Gundam property EVER. The first episode made a gigantic splash across the world, bringing in a huge influx of new fans. Learning that G-Witch also took place in a school and would tone down the technobabble is what convinced me to finally sit down and watch it, and I'm glad to say I don't regret it. But while I do genuinely enjoy G-Witch as a show, there are things it could have improved upon.

In the year Ad Stella 122, a young girl by the name of Suletta Mercury transfers from her home planet of...well, Mercury, to the prestigious Asticassia School of Technology, a planetary academic institute run by the megacorporation known as the Benerit Group. While on her way there, she encounters another girl, Miorine Rembran, trying to escape the institute and head to Earth in order to free herself from her controlling father and his plans for her. Asticassia is known for letting students engage in staged mecha duels to decide on everything, no matter how petty, from apologies to marriage arrangements, and duelists all over constantly battle each other for the right to marry Miorine for their own gains. Miorine really wants to take her life in her own hands and is sick of being treated like little more than a prize to be won. Through a series of events, Suletta winds up winning a duel against a bully, which results in her being set to be Miorine's...betrothed? But this is just the beginning of Suletta and Miorine's complicated life together at the academy, and only one piece of a much larger agenda tying into the origins of Suletta's beloved mobile suit, the Gundam Aerial.

Compared to the few Gundam series' I've seen, G-Witch's overall look leans more on the overtly cartoony side of animation rather than the more rugged, rustic, realistic designs from series' past, even compared to the very first Gundam anime. The female characters look more cutesy and moe, most of the guys are pretty boys with multi-colored hair, and some of the adult characters have designs that border on being kind of ridiculous, namely that quintet of old ladies who run Peil Technologies. Other than some off-model moments scattered throughout the show, the animation is fairly consistent throughout. The backgrounds are all well-made, and the series has no small amount of fluid giant robot action, especially near the end of the series. Plus, the actual mobile suit designs, even the ones for each company in-series, are all visually distinct, helped by the fact that Sunrise hired four mechanical designers to design them for each in-series corporation, all of whom worked on previous Gundam series before G-Witch. Though...I have to admit, I like the general soundtrack, but I admit I wasn't a fan of the openings and endings save for the second opening. Seriously, the singer's voice for the second ending makes my ears bleed.

The overall storyline tends to be all over the place, though in the beginning, this isn't a bad thing. At first, G-Witch seemed to be going the really cheesy route of "Kids good, adults bad!" "Down with the patriarchy!" message, what with having several of their villains be abusive parents shouting stuff like "Children should obey their parents without question!" without a hint of subtlety, though thankfully that got toned down as the series went on. I know some people had issues with the slow pacing of the earliest episodes, but I personally didn't, as I felt they did a fair enough job of not only easing us into the setting, but fleshing out the cast of characters, especially Suletta and Miorine. I hate this idea that a show has to be nothing but non-stop action and story progression, because if all you do is go fast, fast, fast, without taking the time to develop your characters and show what they're like outside the main conflict, how can we, the audience, be expected to care about them? And as far as the characters go, the main trio—Suletta, Miorine, and Guel—carry the show wonderfully. Not every character gets the screen time needed to really flesh them and their backgrounds out beyond the main conflict (Shaddiq's cohorts are especially hit hard with this, as we literally know nothing about them besides that they work for him), but the ones that do fulfill their roles in the story pretty well. In my opinion, Guel is the best developed character in the whole series, and G-Witch did an amazing job at showing his growth from entitled, arrogant jackass to a more humbler, calmer, and more intelligent man.

But as much as I hate to say it, as you can tell by the rating I gave it, G-Witch isn't without its issues, all of which culminate in one thing: G-Witch feels like it should have received way more episodes than it wound up getting. Previously, Gundam series used to be able to receive 40-50 something episodes, even if circumstances mandated that they be cut short. The very first Mobile Suit Gundam series was planned to have 52 episodes but was cut down to 43 due to low ratings upon its initial airing. Gundam X was planned to have 49 episodes but was cut down to 39, though it was able to finish its story on its own terms, so it wasn't outright cancelled. G-Witch is the first mainline Gundam series that I know of to have only been given 24 episodes, barring the Prologue episode (Do correct me if I'm wrong)...and I think this episode length wound up working against it. The last half of part two really bum rushes through its story at a rapid pace, introducing new concepts, characters, and conflicts out of nowhere with absolutely no foreshadowing or explanation whatsoever, discarding other subplots wholesale, and writing themselves in a corner to the point where they pull random Deus Ex Machinas out of their ass just to be able to resolve everything. Even the finale is loaded to the brim with random resolutions to the entire conflict that have absolutely ZERO explanation for how they happen, especially in regards to one character, and only raise more questions than they answer. You'd think G-Witch's popularity would have allowed Sunrise to give it more episodes so it could actually flesh all these things out rather than cram them all into a quarter of the series. Plus, as a result of this, several important plot points just seem to get thrown to the wayside. Like, the series and the characters in it seems to flat-out forget that Guel's father was a complete jackass who berated his son over every little thing, but when the guy dies, everyone talks about his death like it was the worst thing ever when the guy did nothing to deserve any lick of sympathy from anyone. There are even points where G-Witch flat-out contradicts or retcons previous plot threads it established, even as far as one of the prologue novels.

So yeah, as far as G-Witch's flaws go, all of them are the result of not having more episodes to work with. But with all that said, I still enjoyed G-Witch as a show. Granted, I do like Gundam X and War In The Pocket a little more, but that's not to say G-Witch doesn't have anything of value to offer. The fact that it managed to rekindle Gundam's overall popularity, especially overseas, proved that the franchise is here to stay, and to me, reigniting new life into a franchise is the best thing that Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury can do.

Juliko · Nov 2, 2024

This review was written on October 30th, 2024.

Rating: 77/100

Hey Pokemon fans, I pose to you a question: Have you ever dreamed of actually becoming a Pokemon? I bet you imagined it'd be awesome if you could turn into a Pikachu and Thunderbolt anyone who was ever mean to you, or a Scyther and cut trees all you want. Or a Snorlax and just eat and sleep all the time. I'm sure every kid who loved Pokemon wanted to see what it'd be like to be a Pokemon at least once. I know I did. Imagine my surprise when, one day, a mysterious special aired on TV called Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Team Go-Getters Out of the Gate! aired on TV, supposedly as a means to promote a then upcoming game called Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red and Blue Rescue Team. I loved the special, and I got both games for Christmas later that year. They weren't too popular with critics, but Pokemon fans loved the game nonetheless, and its sales helped the company that made it, Spike Chunsoft (Then just Chunsoft), avoid declaring bankrupcy. I've played the first PMD games many times, and even going back to them as an adult, there's a lot to enjoy about them, even if the sequel games, Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky and the later remake Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX improved on them in every way.

You play as a human who finds themselves turned into a Pokemon. They're surprised to find that they're now in a world inhabited only by Pokemon, and to make things more confusing, they themselves have no memory of their past, other than that they were human. They're found by another Pokemon who asks if they'd like to form a rescue team with them. The world has been devastated by a series of natural disasters as of late, and concerned Pokemon have begun to form rescue teams in order to help anyone in need. The newly formed rescue team makes all manner of new friends and enemies, but what exactly is causing all of these disasters? Why did the MC turn from a human into a Pokemon? Are they connected somehow? Every adventure allows the two partners to work together as they slowly piece together clues about how and why the MC got here.

Before Pokemon Black and White came onto the scene, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is the first game in the series to put more emphasis on strong story arcs and character development as opposed to the mainline game's gotta catch them all and become a Pokemon master premise. Granted, these days other games in the franchise have expanded on these things, so you could say that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red and Blue Rescue Team walked so other Pokemon games, even in the PMD series, could run. That's not to say PMD: Red and Blue doesn't have anything to offer on that front. I really enjoyed the games' plot, and it even has a surprisingly robust post-game too. I won't spoil anything, even though by this point it's an almost 20 year old game, but Red/Blue Rescue Team has a compelling narrative, with one arc in particular being beloved by all who played it, me included. Future games would go even further with strong narratives that really make you care about the characters. Granted, the characters and their overall development isn't much compared to later games that would improve on it, and even by Pokemon standards, the characters here are rather rote. But again, this game walked so future games could run.

PMD Red/Blue is the first roguelike game I've played. Roguelike is a genre of video game where dungeon crawling is the name of the game, level designs and gameplay elements are generated at random, and if you die, depending on which game you're playing, you lost all your progress and have to start all over. As someone who had never played a roguelike game before this one, I found it pretty easy to get into, and the game tells you about various mechanics upfront so you're not entirely lost on what to do. The core gameplay revolves around exploring dungeons and rescuing clients when they need help. Early dungeons are pretty easy if you know what to do, but some of the post-game dungeons are BRUTAL, with two dungeons not only destroying all your items and money if you go in, but resetting your level back to one, along with all of your acquired skills and forbidding you from bringing teammates. I admit there are some mechanics I didn't like. For one, when you recruit new members to your team, you're only allowed to have up to four party members at one time, and if you try to recruit more than that, the game doesn't give you the option to just teleport them to your base, so if you don't have an empty slot, you're forced to release them back into the wild. And even then, you need to have purchased their required Friend Area beforehand, because if you haven't, you can't recruit your desired Pokemon at all. Later games would fix this, the remake included. Your item bag only lets you hold 16 items and that's it, which can be annoying if you want to preserve items like Reviver Seeds and Escape Orbs. Again, later games would fix this and allow you to bring more items on missions.

As far as the graphics go, they're pretty good. Cute, expressive sprites with accompanying portraits for dialogue are backed against colorful backgrounds. They were already pretty good by themselves, but again, the Explorers games would improve on them further. I do wish the town itself was more fleshed out, and many of the side characters are bland and don't get to do much. So yeah, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red and Blue Rescue Team are cute, enjoyable games with a bit more bite to them than the mainline Pokemon games at the time, even if many of its mechanics are rather tedious to manage. I will admit, I do prefer the remake, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX, because it introduces a lot of quality of life features that make going through it easier, along with the Explorers games because they expanded on everything PMD Red and Blue introduced. But I would recommend playing the original games at least once to see where the PMD series started, and thankfully, it's pretty easy to do so. The GBA and DS games are easy and cheap to find online, and just recently, Red Rescue Team was added to the Nintendo Switch Online's GameBoy Advance library, so anyone who has the NSO Expansion Pack can play it. I know I enjoyed these games as a kid and I still enjoy them now.

Juliko · Nov 21, 2024

This review was started on November 3rd, 2024, but not finished until today.

Rating: 82/100

Man, the 2020s are a great year for fans of Pokemon anime. Not only are there so many more animated properties for Pokemon, they're all very different from one another, and not only that, the main TV anime finally gave Ash the boot and started a new series with a whole new protagonist! Pokemon is really changing things up, and as someone who's been with the franchise since childhood, I'm more than glad for it. Out of the many short Pokemon anime that have come out, my personal favorite of them is the PokeToon series, an anthology series with every episode having different stories done in different animation styles. Some episodes were good, others not so much, but it was a fun time, and I think it'd be a great way to allow different creators, storytellers, and animators the chance to tell their own unique stories in the Pokemon universe, similar to what Star Wars Visions is doing for Star Wars. Pokemon is such a huge, expansive franchise open to all sorts of ideas and I know most people would kill for a chance to play around in as creators. The PokeToon series seems like a great way to do that, though only eight episodes were produced in 2021, with nothing confirming that there would be more.

But then came an announcement in 2024 that PokeToon would be back with eight more episodes, though animated by ZEXCS rather than Studio Colorido this time around. Seriously, as soon as I read that announcement, you better believe I was hyped as all hell!...though my hype dampened when I read about how half the episodes were going to be made. But I'll save that discussion for later. Like the first PokeToon series, this one also has every episode telling a different, self-contained story. The second episode, Angry Primeape Observation Diary, centers on a young boy writing about his Primeape and trying to find a way to make its anger go away. This one is definitely the most stylized and cartoony out of the full length episodes, with bright colors, exaggerated facial expressions, and a lot of slapstick. This one was cute, and I did get a big laugh out of the punchline at the very end. Also, it's nice to hear more Rie Kugimiya doing character types other than the tsundere.

The fourth episode, Ride The Gogoat, is about a boy named Julian who is depressed after both a fight with his friend and getting his leg injured, to the point where he doesn't want to go to school, fearing things will be awkward between him and his friend. A wild Gogoat notices his distress and entices Julian to ride on it. The Gogoat proceeds to take Julian on a wild ride throughout town. The art style for this one is more grounded, and is it just me, or do the character designs look like they came out of a Studio Ponoc movie? Note I specifically mention Ponoc and not Ghibli. Then again, this episode's plot is much more down-to-earth and mundane, and I actually liked this one. It's simple but not cloying or condescending, and I admit I am a little biased because Gogoat is my favorite gen 6 grass-type Pokemon.

The sixth episode, Chansey's Safari Tag Game, which is the longest episode in the entire series, is my favorite out of them, if only because it manages to successfully balance both poignant character development and zany comedy without either one clashing with the other. In this one, an inquisitive young girl named Meg is sent to live with her Uncle Bozly, who runs the Safari Zone. But Bozly is rather gruff, and he's been having trouble with a wild Chansey that seems to be intentionally giving him a hard time. Meg finds herself being friends with said Chansey against Bozly's wishes and learns that these two have more of a history than she thought. This was a very cute, charming, and wholesome story about a family spending time together and solving an external problem, with both characters growing as people, combined with sumptuous animation and a gorgeous soundtrack. Also, it actually explains why a Chansey would be ridiculously hard to catch, and I admit, I got a huge laugh out of the final scene and punchline. My only real gripes with it are that Meg's design comes across as a little too saccharine, and it doesn't explain if this Safari Zone is an already existing one like in Kanto or Hoenn, or a completely original one. I assume it's the latter because you won't find Pokemon like Hoppip, Skwovet, and Maschiff in Kanto, Safari Zone or no. Still, I really loved this one, and I think it's the best episode out of the four full length ones.

The eighth and final episode, Charcadet Childhood Friends, is the other best episode in this anthology in my opinion. Two Charcadet, one shiny and one not, are best friends, but when one of them gets caught by a trainer, they go down very different paths in life until they reunite later on. One lives a comfortable life with its new trainer while the other one struggles to survive in the harsh wilds. This is the only episode animated by Colorido, and they really pulled out all the stops here. This one is a heartwrenching drama about how the two Charcadet become different Pokemon, both personality-wise and once they physically evolve, and how their circumstances change them as time goes on. Not to mention the awesome, well-choreographed battle scenes that are a feast for the eyes, showing just how far the two Charcadet have come since their early days. It's also nice that some characters from the game made some brief cameos in it, and I'm always down for seeing Deerling in any Pokemon anime no matter how brief. This episode was a much better note to go out on than how the 2021 anthology ended with the rather...lackluster CGI Jigglypuff episode. I guess the two week delay really helped this episode.

You may have noticed by now that I've made absolutely no mention of the odd numbered episodes as opposed to the even numbered episodes. That's on purpose, because the odd numbered episodes are literally nothing but glorified TikTok-style short videos, complete with being animated in a vertical short form video format for viewing on phones. I'm not gonna mince words here, I really didn't like these particular episodes. I question even calling them episodes because they're nothing but short music videos trying to cash in on TikTok's popularity, so I'm not even going to bother associating them with PokeToon as a whole. As happy as I am about PokeToon making new episodes again, I really hope this whole short-form video thing they're doing isn't going to be the standard from here on out, because PokeToon doesn't need to chase trends in order to be good or popular, which it's already proven! The only odd numbered episode worth talking about is episode 7, mainly because the main character is designed to look like she came straight out of the 90s (And looks too much like Meg from the previous episode). Seriously TPCI, I love PokeToon and all, but please stop with these short-form music videos. They're going to look dated in the next decade. Hell, the big October Pokemon leak revealed that there were apparently plans to make a 12-episode Pokemon series similar to PokeToon but with half-hour long episodes under the code name Pokemon Reload, complete with Studio Colorido doing the animation. There's no indication of whether that series will ever be made, and if this leak turns out to be true, I dearly hope Pokemon Reload doesn't get canceled, because I would absolutely devour it, as would many other Pokemaniacs!

But on the whole, these are another great set of short films that show different sides of the Pokemon world and the skills of the staff and animators that bring the Pokemon world to life in their own unique ways. While I do think Yume no Tsubomi is still the best PokeToon overall, I'm always down for more PokeToon overall, and the 2024 anthology is no exception. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if PokeToon pulled a Star Wars Visions where they'd have different episodes animated by different studios. Man, I'd kill for a PokeToon episode done by a company like Science Saru, Nippon, or Kyoto Animation. Wit Studio has already proven they have the chops with Hisuian Snow and Paldean Winds. I bet PokeToon would also make for a great training ground for new aspiring animators and writers. I don't know if more PokeToon will be made, but on the chance that there'll be more, I'll devour it like a Lycanroc! Just ditch the short form TikTok video style, that's all I ask.

Juliko · Nov 28, 2024

This review was just finished today.

Rating: 70/100

One of the reasons I love anime so much is that Japan is totally okay with allowing any ideas to become reality? Want a story about children bonding with cute monsters and saving the world? We have a bunch of them right here? Want to play a video game about a little boy spending summer in the countryside doing nothing but catching bugs, exploring, swimming, and making fun memories? Sure, go nuts! Want an anime about girls who sing to heal people's injuries and illnesses? Who cares if it sounds stupid, let's greenlight it! So yeah, not all anime, manga, or games just consist of shounen series that go on for hundreds of episodes and have nothing but flashy fights. Anime is well known by many for its abundance of ideas, crazy and mundane. But whether you're able to execute an idea well is another story. One such story, The Concierge, completely runs with a fun idea and commits to it, which is all well and good...but one part it doesn't do all that well unfortunately really hinders it from being anything other than just okay.

At the Hokkyoku Department Store, animals of all shapes and sizes can shop for whatever their hearts desire—everything from gifts for family members to gourmet dinners. Extinct animals in particular are considered VIPs deserving of the absolute best of the best in terms of service. Yet, what makes this store so great is not just its wide selection of items but its astounding customer service. Beyond the clerks working at each shop, the department store itself features several highly-trained concierges who strive to make each and every customer's experience a pleasurable one. But does Akino, the newest concierge at the store, have what it takes to help all her animal clients with their myriad of problems, or will she be searching for a new job?

Based on the two-volume manga by Tsuchika Nishimura, The Concierge is an equally short one hour movie showing Akino's experiences in her new job at a luxury department store and all that it entails. Not gonna lie, the setting is definitely the most interesting thing about the movie. A department store that caters to animal clients, with extinct ones receiving the VIP treatment is a really interesting idea, one that both tickles your imagination and raises a lot of questions. How were these animals even brought back to life if they're clients at the store? Is this some sort of universe where some kind of science managed to bring them back? How are they able to talk? What's the department store's history with extinct animals? All we really know about the store is that it's run by a Great Auk and that said Great Auk's family founded it around the time of the species' extinction. I really want to know more about this weird setting! The extinct animal angle also adds to just how delicate being a concierge at the store is, as Akino has to be careful not to step on any of her smaller patrons, who happen to be smaller animals like birds or raccoons, and considering how clumsy she is...yeah, she's got her work cut out for her.

Not to mention the animation for this movie is just fantastic. While the character designs are simple and only lightly detailed, for the most part, the fluid and expressive animation makes them come alive. Meanwhile, the department store is highly detailed in nearly every aspect, really making it appear as the magical, high-class store it's supposed to be in the eyes of its visitors. One thing I do appreciate about The Concierge as a movie is that it doesn't follow your typical first/middle/third act structure. It's more like a series of vignettes, each of which revolve around Akino helping a customer either find an item they need or just help with their issues. These are cute and enjoyable—relating to things like connecting with family, finding love, and dealing with the lingering pain of loved ones long gone. Moreover, there is a strong animal conservation message woven throughout as many of the animals shown are extinct—and by human hands at that. The soundtrack is also pretty nice, even if it's not all that memorable. I do help this tofubeats person/group (There isn't much info about them) gets to do more work outside of this and ClassicaLoid, as I'd love to hear more of their stuff.

So yeah, this movie has a unique setting, great animation, a lovely soundtrack, and strong themes about both animal conversation and what it truly means to provide good customer service. I'd have enjoyed this movie a whole lot more...if every character wasn't a one-note stereotype. Seriously, all of the characters in this movie are either just so bland, forgettable, and uninteresting, or rely on their gimmick way too much. Akino herself is your typical overly kind yet perpetually clumsy girl who can never seem to go a day without messing something up, and is so spineless that she literally lets people walk all over her. Hell, when a monk seal Karen (Yes, really) gets mad at her over the store not having a dress in a certain size and openly expressing that she sees store staff as little more than servants, Akino literally gets on her knees and apologizes to her when the fault isn't even hers, allowing herself to be humiliated just before a coworker steps in. Like...girl, put your foot down! Grow a back bone! You shouldn't have to prostrate yourself to a customer just because they're butthurt over an item being out of stock! Not only that, I really didn't like that Todo guy, as he spends all his time being a ridiculously overbearing micromanaging manager who does nothing but berate Akino for every mistake she makes no matter how small, and the few times he does praise her don't amount to much. Is it any wonder she's always so nervous? Hell, one character pops up in the last third of the movie just to tell Akino she sucks at her job and then disappears. I feel like this guy was just shoehorned into the movie for forced third act drama.

Another thing I didn't like about the movie is that all of its problems are solved in ways that feel way too clean and neat. Need a perfume that was discontinued years ago? Well, the former head of the department store oh so conveniently managed to find said perfume after making some calls and reaching out to certain people! Need to actually identify this perfume? Let's have this random bear do it! A kid broke a super expensive ice sculpture that can never be replaced? It's fine, the kid made a cake for the sculptor and all is forgiven! Also, this series seems to believe that a concierge should always strive for perfection and be some sort of magical therapist who manages to solve everyone's issues. I admit, I know little about the hospitality industry and how hard it can be, but there really needs to be some kind of line drawn here. There's showing what it's like to work in the hospitality industry, and then there's idealizing it, and I don't think The Concierge does enough of the former, preferring to do too much of the latter, the aforementioned monk seal Karen notwithstanding. There's also the fact that the movie is only an hour long, and I feel like it would have benefited from being just a bit longer so it could flesh out its characters a bit more. Maybe the manga has more details that the anime left out, I don't know.

Man, it's a shame I couldn't enjoy this movie more, as there is quite a bit to like about it. It fully commits to its crazy idea and has fun with it, and the animators did a fantastic job of bringing the manga to life in ways only they could. It's a nice, cozy movie to watch if you want to kill an hour, but pretty animation can't hide the fact that its cast of characters are as bland and dull as white rice, nor fix it. It's a light-hearted look at the service industry that doesn't break any new ground...but that's all it is.

Juliko · Nov 29, 2024

This review was written on September 28th, 2024. Hoo boy.

Rating: 61/100

Comedy is purely subjective by its very nature, and different people have their own preferences in regards to what makes them laugh. Some people like gross-out jokes, some people like slapstick, some people like physical comedy a la The Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers, and that's fine. Everyone's preferences for comedy are valid and unique. But one thing that's really important when you're writing comedy at all is not just timing, but making sure it doesn't clash with whatever else its being used for. Unfortunately, there's a lot of series that think shoving comedy into things where it's not needed or warranted will make a series great, but it's really not. Unfortunately, after having watched the anime of The Elusive Samurai, it wound up being one of those series. Good lord, I really wanted to like this series, but it turned out to be such a mess.

Based on the manga by Yusei Matsui, the author of Assassination Classroom, The Elusive Samurai centers on 8-year-old Tokiyuki Hojo, the youngest prince of the Hojo clan, living his carefree life in Kamakura of the 1300s. He shows little regard for the serious responsibilities that come with his eventually succeeding his father as the next shogun, which is typical for a child of his age. Instead of dedicating himself to rigorous training in swordsmanship or archery, Tokiyuki excels in the art of evasion, skillfully dodging his advisors and discovering perfect hiding spots. However, his peaceful existence is shattered when a sudden coup brutally wipes out his clan, moreso when it turns out a retainer that he adored, Takauji Ashikaga, was the one who spearheaded the massacre. Overwhelmed with guilt for being the sole survivor, Tokiyuki contemplates joining his family in death, but his fate takes an abrupt turn when the enigmatic priest Yorishige Suwa suddenly shoves him onto a battlefield. Yorishige, who prophesizes that Tokiyuki will one day become a great hero, leaves the boy with no choice but to navigate his way out of the hands of enemy soldiers. As Tokiyuki struggles to survive against these foes, he finds a new thrill in raising the stakes of his usual hide-and-seek games. With a renewed sense of purpose and the promise of powerful allies from Yorishige, Tokiyuki vows to avenge his family—not through his capability to fight, but through his extraordinary talent for running away.

Now, I haven't read or seen Assassination Classroom, manga or anime, so I'm not familiar with Yusei Matsui's brand of comedy. But after seeing the anime for The Elusive Samurai, I've come to the conclusion that...his brand of comedy just isn't for me. But I don't want to be a negative nancy, so for the sake of wanting to be fair, I'm going to talk about the good things the anime has to offer, and there are quite a few things it has going for it. For one, CloverWorks really went all out in the animation department here. Not just in things like character motion, backgrounds, and the costumes, but for using all sorts of experimental animation techniques in a variety of different ways, reveling in being as weird and surreal as possible when it feels its necessary. The Elusive Samurai is at its best when it lets its animation staff completely let loose and experiment, whether it be with intentional rough-shod pencil sketches, Renaissance-style water colors, or psychedelic acid trips filled to the brim with color, symbolism, and crazy imagery straight out of Belladonna of Sadness. I'll give CloverWorks this, they mostly made Elusive Samurai look awesome. I say mostly because it does cut quite a few corners from time to time, with the most egregious offenses being awful CGI models of characters, whether they be riding horses or just...turning to look behind themselves. Like...what? Why even do that? At least Atri: My Dear Moments limited CGI-modeled characters to when they're far into the background. The CGI almost borders on Tsuki ga Kirei levels of obnoxious and in your face.

And for the most part, I liked some of the characters. Tokiyuki is a fun lead character who does grow over the course of these twelve episodes and makes full use of his skillset without the series ever making him come off as overpowered. He's not physically strong, but the skills he does learn manage to compensate for his lack of strength, giving the battles more of a tense edge to them, and he manages to have enough personality to be endearing and fun to follow. Alright, this is the part where I have to be honest and say...other than Tokiyuki and Fubuki, none of the other characters are given this same treatment. All the other characters, even the ones in the main ensemble, don't really have much to them except their mission to protect and help Tokiyuki. Kojiro gets some development outside of being just one of Tokiyuki's retainers, but that only happens in the final episode, meaning it's far too late for it to really have any real impact. I'll go into more about other characters in a bit, but I will say this: I fucking hate Genba. He's God awful, but more than that is what the show does with him. No, show, I do not need to see a ten-year-old child not only being drunk off his ass, but sexually assaulting every girl he sees, have the whole thing be played for wacky anime comedy, and have that very same episode end on a close-up of his comically censored genitals. This also extends to the villains, who I really couldn't bring myself to give two shits about because all of them are just generic Saturday morning cartoon villains who you'll only remember because of one exaggerated character trait they have and nothing else. The only, and I do mean ONLY, villain in this series that is given even a sliver of nuance and humanity is Sadamune, but that only happens near the end of the show, and after that he just disappears. All the other villains in this show don't do anything except be out for Tokiyuki's blood or scream maniacally for the sake of forcing unneeded comedy.

Speaking of unneeded comedy...you know what? It's time I rip this band-aid off, because I cannot hold back any longer. I want to like Elusive Samurai as a show. I really do. But I'll be honest, watching this was a total chore, mainly because of it's biggest flaws: Both its comedy and its constant use of tonal whiplash. Actually, I'm going to highlight a specific scene in episode 2 which I feel encapsulates everything wrong with the anime as a whole: When Tokiyuki returns to his home, seeing it in ruins, he falls to his knees and openly cries, mourning the loss of his family, friends, and clan at the hands of Ashikaga. It's a moment of vulnerability for him, and Tokiyuki needed to grieve in order to process what had happen to him. The scene should have remained somber...but in the VERY NEXT SECOND, the mood and tone are completely and utterly ruined by a shot of Yorishige Suwa shoving his creepy as fuck smily face in Tokiyuki's line of sight and scaring the bejeezes out of him, complete with exaggerated anime faces on both characters. Basically, not only is The Elusive Samurai's approach to comedy cringy as all hell in that it relies way too much on constant yelling, exaggerated gags, and one-note fourth wall jokes, the show constantly shoehorns it throughout its entire run, especially in scenes where it's not only completely unneeded, but actively clashes with what's going on on screen! Like...do we really need some dude screaming like a banshee as a child's family gets horrifically murdered around him?! This show seems to have no concept of how to balance both its dramatic and comedic moments properly, or is convinced the material won't be able to stand on its own without constant comedic exaggeration amped up to eleven 24/7. I know other series had problems with balancing drama and humor sometimes, Demon Slayer being one such show thanks to Zenitsu, but I've never seen it be so obnoxiously omniprescent as it is in Elusive Samurai. And unfortunately, from what I've heard about the manga, this is a feature, not a bug, so it's here to stay. Uuuuugh.

And a lot of the unnecessary comedy is perpetuated by Suwa, the vehicle through which Yusei Matsui espouses all of his weird comedy bullshit. Yeah, not gonna mince words, Suwa pretty much breaks the show for me (Though less so than Genba). Every single time his comically exaggerated creepy as fuck smily face gets plastered on the screen, either the mood or tone gets completely shot to hell and back. I actually think the show works better when he's being a more serious mentor rather than the unhinged banshee fourth wall espousing comedy vehicle the show clearly wants him to be. He's basically the Zenitsu of Elusive Samurai, only his presence is constant and we're expected to just find his antics funny even though they're clearly not. It doesn't help that his so-called powers seem less like actual abilities and more like excuses for him to break the fourth wall and throw in modern or pop culture references that are completely out of place in a show like Elusive Samurai. Seriously, this show thinks its funny when it's just...not, and before you come at me with all your "Oh, you must not like fun!" accusations, I don't hate fun. But I don't like it when a piece of media tries to shoehorn unneeded, unfunny comedy in places where it clearly has no business being, case in point the aforementioned scene in episode 2 which should have been just somber and sad.

The Elusive Samurai does have the makings of a good show, and even with its animation hang-ups, it's clear the staff who worked on this show put a lot of hard work into it. I just wish that same passion and versatility was applied to everything else, and if I'm being honest, the anime has put me off of reading the manga. The less I have to put up with Suwa and Genba, the happier I'll be. A second season was announced, but I have absolutely no interest in watching it. If you like Elusive Samurai, cool, more power to you. Feel free to enjoy it if you're into Yusei Matsui's brand of comedy. It's not my cup of tea, and that's okay.

Juliko · Dec 4, 2024

This review was written on October 9th, 2024.

Rating: 80/100

So who here has heard of Junichi Sato? He's a fairly prolific anime director with years of experience under his belt. Even if you haven't heard of him, you've probably seen his work, like the first season of Sailor Moon, Kaleido Star, Princess Tutu, the Aria series, the first Ojamajo Doremi season, and so on. In 2010, he announced that he was making his own original series called Tamayura, starting with a short OVA. I will admit, when Tamayura first came out, I was OBSESSED with it. You've probably read my old crappy review of the OVA and the first TV series. I considered it a masterpiece and one of the best shows ever. But during 2016, the series got four movies, and I didn't see them because I was deep in anime burnout at that time. Plus, it'd been years since I've seen both seasons. One day, I decided to revisit the series on a whim, curious if my feelings on it had changed now that I'm older and more mature, and now that my tastes have changed. After rewatching the first season, Tamayura: Hitotose and the OVAs, I've come to the conclusion that my feelings on it have, in fact changed, but I still enjoy it. Not as much as I did when I was younger, but I still enjoy it, even if parts of it come off as rather stale and annoying.

The story goes as follows: Fu Sawatari is a young girl who loves photography and taking pictures, but had fallen out of it after her father's untimely passing. She finds herself taking up the hobby again in her last year of middle school, right as her family decides to move to Takehara, a town by the Seto Inland Sea in Hiroshima, the place where her father grew up. A shy girl at feart, Fu does manage to make a few friends and even reunite with some old ones: Kaoru Hanawa, her level-headed childhood friend, along with her more boisterous older sister Sayori; Norie Okazaki, a cheerful aspiring baker who adores Fu's younger brother Kou, and Maon Sakurada, a quiet girl who prefers communicating by whistling. Every day brings new encounters, rekindles old memories, and presents all sorts of new experiences and opportunities for Fu to take photos and make connections to others through them. Time moves ever forward one photo at a time.

At the time of Hitotose's production, Hal Film Maker got absorbed into TYO Productions, but the team from the OVA was able to come back to work on this and the later seasons and movies. Just like the OVA, the TV series doesn't cut any corners when it comes to its animation. The backgrounds are crafted with respect for detail, and the actual movement for character actions is fluid and dynamic when needed. I never felt like there were any shots that were off-model or inconsistent. For a series that was made in the early 2010s, it really stands a cut above the rest, even if it's not to the levels of Anohana, Kamichu, or Madoka Magica. This is the kind of series where you can just kick back, relax, and enjoy the scenery, which is what the characters in this series do quite often, and the slow, leisurely pacing helps with this if you're into shows like that.

Similarly, the soundtrack by Nobuyuki Nakajima fits the series like a glove, with soft pianos, woodwinds, clarinets, and oboes further contributing to the show's more peaceful, relaxed atmosphere. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't done any more soundtracks outside of this one, as he's clearly good at what he does. All the songs are really good too, both the opening and ending themes by Maaya Sakamoto and Megumi Nakajima to the insert songs sung by the girls' seiyuus are easy on the ears and are just overall pleasant to listen to. On the audio front, I will warn you that the girls' voices can get very shrill, and if you're sensitive to female voice actresses pushing their voices to sound as high pitched as humanly possible, you'd best back out now. Norie in particular can get really screechy, particularly when she gushes over Fuu's little brother Kou, and as someone who has auditory sensory issues, I can understand people having issues with listening to her. Seriously Yuka Iguchi, dial it back a bit!

Being a firmly slice-of-life show, Tamayura is all about its characters and fleshing them out. On this front, Tamayura does succeed, especially in how it ties the girls' personalities and development to their hobbies and creative pursuits, which range from writing and photography to more unusual activities like making potpourri. To quote another review, most of these hobbies either say something about the individual character or help her to grow as a person; Fuu uses her camera as a way of staying connected to her father while Maon uses music and storytelling to overcome her shyness. Tying character development into everyone's hobbies works fairly well, and the show is able to cover a broader emotional range than most slice-of-life moe shows at this time usually did. Not every series can cover things like grief and self-doubt while remaining upbeat and optimistic, but this one manages to keep everything in balance. The main girls and their immediate families are fine characters, but there are a few side characters who don't evolve past being one-note stereotypes. Sayomi is constantly dragging her sister and friends on little adventures, taking the longest, hardest paths to get there, and often causes them grief in the process. Fuu's friend Chihiro cries A LOT, and I can understand people finding her crybaby tendencies really annoying after the second time around, though even she actually grows up a bit. I mainly found their teacher Dougou to be obnoxious and irritating in how his very first scene involves him needling the girls over their flaws while they're on their lunch break, which he honestly has no business doing, and continues to do so after the fact despite the show wanting the audience to see him as a nice guy. Komachi is a little kid who has a crush on Kou but is constantly antagonizing both Norie and Fuu, claiming they're trying to "use their wiles" on him, even though Fuu is literally Kou's sister! Why did they have to make this girl harass poor Fuu?! It's so unnecessary!

However, one-note side characters aren't Tamayura's only problem. Most of the time the comedy doesn't land, and one gag they constantly re-use over and over again is that Norie, a teenage girl, is obsessed with Fuu's younger brother Kou, which is both annoying and creepy but doesn't really go beyond her gushing over how cute he is. There's also a fluffy pink cat thing called Momoneko who literally serves no purpose other than to be cute, and as much as I love cats, I felt like he was just shoehorned into the show just because Sato wanted to do his own take on President Aria. Furthermore, the TV series expects you to have seen the OVA before watching it, which is easy enough considering the OVA was included in the DVD set that came out here in North America. Finally, this show really likes to misuse the word aggressive. According to this show, aggressive means being more proactive and taking the initiative, even though the correct word is assertive, as aggressive implies that someone is violent or forceful. On a smaller note, this complaint is more directed towards the translation used for the DVD: Who the hell thought it was a good idea to translate "fuwawa" as "floofdoodly"?! The hell? Did you just...make up a word for the sake of it? Because it doesn't work! Don't try to make Tamayura more saccharine than it already is, because it doesn't need to be cutesied up!

Basically, if you're not into leisurely slice-of-life or moe shows, you're not gonna enjoy this. That said, I feel Tamayura, both the OVA and Hitotose, succeed in managing to tell a heartwarming, inoffensive, laid-back show that still manages to respect its characters, themes, and story. Rewatching it again, I don't feel as strongly about it as I did when I was younger, but I still found myself enjoying it for what it has to offer, even if there are other similar shows that I enjoyed more, like Natsume Yuujinchou and Kamichu. Tamayura is definitely one of the better moe shows the 2010s had to offer, and I'm glad to decided to rewatch it as an adult, because it's relaxing, sweet, and pleasant, even to a fault, and it could have benefited from dialing back the saccharineness a bit. Come to think of it, I never did review the second season. I ought to remedy that now that I've finished my rewatch of this season.

Juliko · Dec 6, 2024

This review was originally written on August 11th, 2024. Yes, I know I posted this on here previously, but I moved it up a page.

Rating: 88/100

Hey kids! Remember back in the 90s-2000s, people were convinced that video games made people violent? Or believed that video games were only violent shooters, and stuff like D&D and Pokemon were Satanic? These days, actual studies have shown video games by themselves don't cause people to become violent or engage in violent acts, and luckily, that stereotype has mostly died out. But there are also people who believe that real games should only be shooters, action games, or overworld games, not those pesky RPGs, visual novels, farm sims, and so on. I think you guys know which camp I'm in. Video games, like all media, can be anything and everything their creators want them to be, whether they be action packed fantasies or down-to-earth, quiet farming sims. There's really no restriction on their content anymore. Just look at the Boku no Natsuyasumi series, which are basically video games about kids playing in the countryside during their summer vacation and doing everything from fishing, catching bugs, hanging with friends, and so on. I'm only just starting to learn about the BokuNatsu series, but recently, a game that's made by the same creators, Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid, got an English release and came out on Switch and PC. It looked cute, so I played the demo and thoroughly enjoyed it. 30 hours in, and I'm totally hooked!

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid has you playing the role of a 10-year-old boy named Satoru, whose family runs a traveling circus troupe. In August of 1999, the troupe stops at the tiny Yomogi Town, staying there for a month before going back on the road yet again. Since it's summer break, Satoru has the entire month to just do whatever he wants, be it exploring, catching bugs, going fishing, playing with new friends, getting to know the townsfolk, climbing trees, helping with various tasks around town, and going on all sorts of fun adventures, documenting them all in his sketchbook. There is the plot thread of the circus having financial trouble, but the game gives you the freedom to do whatever you want every day, and the game doesn't expect you to fulfill any pressing objectives unless you want to unlock one of many multiple endings, all of which involve Satoru's future occupation.

Unlike the regular Boku no Natsuyasumi games, which primarily used 3D character sprites against pre-rendered 2D backgrounds and set camera angles, Natsu-Mon is a fully 3D open-world game. Natsu-Mon encourages you to climb the highest peaks and explore every nook and cranny there is, with no shortage of side quests and goals to fulfill at however pace you wish, whether it be finding out who's letting the pigs out of the pen or exploring the old castle outside of town. Don't go into this game expecting any action, fighting, or over-the-top drama. Fitting the game's more exploration-oriented gameplay, Satoru can swim (Unlike BokuNatsu 2, you can't dive underwater), climb, jump, and run, though early on, you don't have much stamina to do a whole lot of it. You can gain more buy earning stickers, which you receive as rewards from fulfilling objectives both big and small, and the more you get, the more exploring you can do, which really helps in trying to access the harder to reach spots, before you get tired. For any of you casual gamers out there, Natsu-Mon allows you to adjust how quickly time passes so you can get in as much exploring as you want. I really appreciate this, as I'm someone who really likes to take my time and enjoy what whatever game I'm playing has to offer, along with doing as much as I'm able.

The exploration aspect is elevated by the game's stellar, delightful art direction. Natsu-Mon is bright, colorful, and brimming with cheer, and even though assets like trees and grasslands are a little flat, and there is clipping on occasion, the game itself more than manages to make up for it with its overall warm, inviting atmosphere, all seen through the eyes of a curious, inquisitive child. Satoru's drawings in his picture diary manage to perfectly capture the creative yet unpolished way a child with that level of motor skills can draw. The in-game character sprites, their designs created by famed Pokemon card artist Hyogonosuke, are cute and well-rendered, and I love the little details that are peppered throughout the game, such as the insect sprites all being unique in the overworld and how during the festivals or fireworks displays, some characters will change into yukatas for the occasion. The cartoony graphics and aesthetically pleasing environments all match the game's tranquil atmosphere and narrative direction.

But attention to detail isn't just limited to art direction. Since the game is very explicitly set during the late nineties, you can't afford to mess around with details regarding the time period or else you risk not being accurate to history. Since Boku no Natsuyasumi creator Kaz Ayabe and his team at Millennium Kitchen have years of experience doing this with BokuNatsu, they brought their A-game to Natsu-Mon, and I'm glad to say that they really pulled it off. There's no sign of modern technology such as smartphones or wide screen TVs, some characters mention on the anniversary of World War II that their parents were elementary school kids when the war happened, and one detail I managed to catch was one of the characters, Junko, mentioning that people thought the world was going to end in July of 1999. For anyone who doesn't know, for a brief time, Japan was obsessed with a book called The Prophecies of Nostramadus, published in 1973 by Ben Goto, and one of Nostramadus' prophecies was that a king of terror would appear from the sky during the seventh month of 1999. It was quite a talking point in Japanese pop culture at the time, and many were convinced it signaled the end of the world. Want to know how I even learned about this? You can thank Discotek Media's Digimon Adventure blu-ray liner notes, specifically the ones for episode 21. Hell, I swear to God this game straight out references the actual first Boku no Natsuyasumi game in that a reporter character mentions that a game company came to the neighboring town to take photos and get information on it, but said game got delayed another year, which is exactly what happened with the first BokuNatsu game IRL!

Weird, country-specific historical references aside, I'd like to talk about the characters. Don't go into this game expecting the characters to evolve and change drastically. Since this game has extremely low stakes and doesn't try to hide the fact that it's a slice-of-life game above all else, the characters and their personalities pretty much stay the same throughout the entirety of Natsu-Mon. But that's not to say they aren't charming, interesting, or well-rounded. Every character has their own set schedule to follow, and there are plenty of event scenarios peppered throughout the game that you can unlock, giving Satoru, and by extension you the player, the chance to get to know them better. Not only that, any interpersonal conflicts they have are not only resolved pretty easily, but remain down-to-earth and don't rely on a lot of the over-the-top melodrama and angst other series tend to do. Everyone in Natsu-Mon is friendly and welcoming, though not to an overly saccharine degree, and Natsu-Mon as a game nails the feeling of being part of a tight-knit community. There's always something going on in town no matter how small. Gotta admit, Junko is my favorite character and I loved all the events involving her.

The game isn't perfect though. I didn't mind the occasionally low poly sprites, bouts of low frame rates, and the awkward draw distance, but the jumping/platforming mechanics aren't as tight as they should be. When Satoru jumps, you're not always going to land where you want to. This is especially prominent early on, when you have to do the sidequest with the shrine lanterns. If you gain a certain amount of stickers, you can unlock the double jump, but you can't do that until later. Also, certain events involving certain characters can't happen unless they're in a specific location, and often times, the characters required for you to interact with aren't in the location where you can activate it. Caught some fish for tonight's dinner but need to talk to Kyoko so she can cook it? Nah, Kyoko's outside talking to the detective and is gonna stay there the whole day, leaving your fresh catch totally wasted. Caught 18 bees for Hachiya? You better hope you find him at the apiary, because that's the only time you can give the bees to him, and often times he's not there! Making this more complicated is that there's nothing that tells you if the characters have a set schedule, so there's no way to figure out when they'll be in the locations required, or if they're going to be locked in an event for that day.

My only other gripe isn't with the game itself, but with the English translation. For the most part, the English translation is fine, but I found three things wrong with it: For some reason, someone thought it was a good idea to have some characters say 2020s slang in a game that's CLEARLY set in 1999. One character says "sweet summer child" and another says "I'm so jelly" even though those phrases were not in use during the nineties. Granted, they don't come up very often, and there are only two instances of this throughout the game, but having grown up during the 2000s, nobody said that stuff until the 2020s or slightly earlier. Like...did the translator who worked on this do their research at all? Second, who decided to translate "itadakimasu" as "thank you, food"?! It's so clunky, wonky, and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever! Why not go with "thanks for the food" or "let's dig in!" or "bon appetit" or something? Also, there was one line that somehow was left completely untranslated, which is where you release fish and are asked if you really want to release them or not. How in the world did the staff at Spike Chunsoft miss this?!

Granted, none of this killed my enjoyment of Natsu-Mon at all. I'm really glad I decided to try this game out. Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid is a cute, wholesome, low-key game that perfectly captures the warmth, whimsy, and nostalgia of childhood, especially one from a bygone time. It'll make you want to look back on your own childhood, back when you probably spent your summer breaks playing with your friends or having fun. Now if only Natsu-Mon had a physical version I can own forever. As of now, Natsu-Mon is only available digitally, and the only physical version is Japan exclusive and has no English translation. For all I know, maybe Limited Run Games will put out a physical version in the future. If that happens, I'll be on that like a hawk! Now that I've played Natsu-Mon, I want to play more games like this, preferably the rest of the Boku no Natsuyasumi series, though only one of the original games got a fan-made English translation recently. I do own another game this same team put out, Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale. I should probably start playing that at some point, and I hear that one's really good, too.

Juliko · Dec 18, 2024

This review was written on December 6th, 2024. This may or may not be my last review of 2024.

Rating: 68/100

Okay, real talk: For all you Little Witch Academia fans out there, I actually haven't watched the TV series for that yet. I've seen the first OVA, but that's about it. Don't worry, I plan on remedying that, as I just watched the first two episodes of LWA on Netflix, with intent to watch the rest. It's kinda surprising I haven't gotten around to watching that, as I've seen and read plenty of other cute witch themed media such as The Owl House, Flying Witch, Mahou Tsukai Precure, Kiki's Delivery Service (Both book and anime), Witch Hat Atelier, Majo to Neko no Hanashi, and as of recently, Eden of Witches. Which reminds me, I should also finish watching the Netflix version of The Worst Witch. But why are we talking about witches? Well, today, I finished another witch-themed manga series, called A Witch's Love At The End Of The World. How did I like it? It's...alright. I really wish I enjoyed this more, which is a shame because it has some neat ideas and a very ambitious story, but this is one of those series where its short length and a lack of time to flesh everything out resulted in it being unable to carry the weight of its premise.

In a world where sorcery is real, witches were persecuted for years by frightened humans until the eighteenth century. In a bid to survive, witches pledged themselves to the rulers of their countries, and in time, all countries would come to have their own witches working in the shadows. Now in the present day, when the strength of a witch determines the strength of her country, humanity seeks stronger and stronger witches, even establishing a school to train aspiring witches—all while oblivious to the seeds of resentment and revenge that lives on in the heart of every single witch. At Sternenlichtl, a prestigious school where witches learn their craft, Alice Keating is the brightest girl in her year and the descendent of the school's founder. Her world is turned upside down when she is assigned to be the tutor to Mari Muguruma, a strange girl who seems out of place among the other witches. As the two grow closer, they also begin to learn the secrets of their respective worlds.

For the sake of brevity, I'm just going to shorten it's title to Witch's Love. If there's one word I can use to describe Witch's Love, its ambitious. Seriously, in just three volumes, Witch's Love goes from being a slice-of-life yuri series in a magic school to discovering a centuries long elaborate plot to destroy all of humanity and trying to stop it, wasting absolutely no time in getting its plot rolling and committing to it. I actually liked the overall story and how the various characters play into it, as Witch's Love has a lot of neat ideas, like witches raising their pupils to focus only on revenge, discarding feelings like love and genuine compassion for their cause, and how falling in love causes a witch to lose their magic. Those are really interesting, though the series doesn't really flesh them out much, other than a few brief reveals at the end. If Witch's Love was longer, it would have had much more room to explore those ideas and the history behind why Sternenlitchtl enforces them with an iron fist.

Yeah, let's not waste any time. Witch's Love could have been something amazing, but all of its flaws are due to it being only three volumes long. This results in a lot of things being really rushed, such as character development, pacing, and world-building. A lot of the story's lore is just sort of exposition dumped in sporadic intervals rather than being shown more organically, kind of like how The Heike Story, as a result of only being 11 episodes long, was made to truncate a lot of events from the novel and have a bunch of characters info-dump their backstories and activities to get to the important stuff faster. As a result of trying to rush through its story, the characters and what development they get feel very half-baked. Plus, a good chunk of the story is supposed to be romance between Alice and Mari, but the way the story presents said romance feels extremely shallow in that the scenes that are supposed to establish their budding romance come off less like the characters are genuinely growing closer and more like they're only interacting because the author made them do so. It doesn't help that for a series that proclaims to be a yuri romance, there's nothing to really indicate that they're even falling in love beyond hand holding and admiration, not to mention they don't even kiss or act like a couple, so I question why this even needed to be a romance at all.

Actually, the cast of characters besides one also suffer from the book's short length, as again, even their development is rushed, resulting in them coming off as bland and cliche. Alice is the stoic ace who becomes nicer thanks to Mari, the clumsy yet bewildered problem child, and so on. Alice's girl posse is just there to take up space, and while I actually do like what they did with Miriam at first, she gets a rather unceremonious end and not much beyond her role in the plot. Plus, the series makes this huge deal about Mari's mother being important to the plot, but said character only appears in two scenes and has absolutely no impact on the story itself, so why bother making her important if you're not even going to do anything with her? The only character who is actually somewhat interesting is Madam Dolly, the headmistress of Sternenlichtl, and her spotlight chapter is the only one that doesn't feel like it's expected to finish everything under a tight deadline. It's a shame, because, again, had Witch's Love been given more time, the author could have fleshed out her characters even more, and maybe have them relax a bit rather than have the whole story feel like it's being resolved 25 chapters earlier than it should. Which is weird because the author notes in one of the volumes that Witch's Love was originally going to be just two volumes, but was expanded to three. Yeah, this really should have been way longer.

As for the art...it's okay. I'm not familiar with Kujira as an artist, but from what I can see, her artwork is serviceable, if a tad underwhelming. There aren't much in the way of backgrounds, but I did like the character designs, with the exception of Alice's reverse mullet that makes her look like someone chopped the back of her hair off. But having been spoiled by the likes of Witch Hat Atelier and Eden of Witches, the lack of attention to detail in everything, from the art to the setting is just yet another example of how bum-rushed Witch's Love feels. It's a serviceable story, and I would very much like to see it be expanded on in every way, because there is potential for something great here. Sadly, A Witch's Love At The End of the World is both too short to carry the weight of its material and crippled by its own ambition. Seriously, it feels like a series that got cancelled even though it's technically complete. If you want a short read that you don't need to think too hard about, Witch's Love won't be a waste of your time, but plenty of other witch series exist that manage to do everything that Witch's Love didn't have the time to do.

Juliko · Dec 24, 2024

This review was written on September 20th, 2024.

Rating: 78/100

So...I knew nothing of Delicious In Dungeon until I learned an anime was going to be made for it this year. My only knowledge of anything by Ryoko Kui is reading her one-shot collection Seven Little Sons of the Dragon. It was a cute manga and had interesting ideas, but I don't really have any strong feelings about it. Apparently Delicious In Dungeon is a popular manga that's pretty well known for its thoughtful fantasy world-building and fun take on the concept of cooking monsters into food. Somebody even paid Linkara to review the earliest chapters of the manga, which apparently led to it being more well-known if what I've heard is true. I've heard so many good things about this show, and at one point, I was bored and thought "Eh, what the hell? I don't have anything better to watch, maybe I'll check this out and see if its any good." As someone who hasn't read the manga, I can definitely see why people like Delicious In Dungeon. It's a cute, delightful, and fun fantasy anime that's a breath of fresh air among the glut of bad isekai that continue to oversaturate the market. But I also don't really have any strong feelings for it beyond that as of this season.

In a fantasy world of dungeon exploration, adventuring parties set out on expeditions to raid dungeons, with many hoping to find the mysterious Golden Kingdom, which is said to be the treasure of an island dungeon. The story begins as a group of adventurers unsuccessfully attempt to slay a red dragon and are forced to escape as it consumes the leader's sister, Falin Touden, a "tallman" (human) spellcaster. Wanting to rescue Falin, who used magic to teleport them to safety, the remaining members of the party—Laios Touden, a tallman swordsman; Chilchuck Tims, a halfling locksmith; and Marcille Donato, an elven spellcaster—brainstorm how to get back to the dungeon level with the dragon in time to save Falin from digestion. With most of their supplies left behind in the dungeon, their mission seems impossible until Laios, who secretly wants to eat dungeon monsters, suggests they sustain themselves by finding food inside, to which Chilchuck and Marcille reluctantly agree. Inside, they encounter Senshi, a dwarf with many years of experience surviving in the dungeon by cooking monsters and harvesting food. The story details their travels through the dungeon, the environments, traps, the monsters they encounter, and the meals they create.

Now, I ask you, did anyone expect Trigger of all studios to be the one to do the animation for Delicious In Dungeon? For as little as I knew of Delicious In Dungeon at the time, I did see that many people were rather skeptical of whether Trigger would be able to do the manga justice. Thankfully, Trigger themselves managed to prove that they were definitely up to the job, giving the series fairly high quality and dynamic animation that a show like this deserves. The quiet scenes are fairly well done on their own, complete with the series' signature food porn, but the action scenes are brought to life with Trigger's signature stylized animation, exaggerated movements, and comical expressions that really make the show, its characters, and setting truly come alive. So don't worry, Marcille's constant comical facial expressions are still there. Also, how am I only just now finding out that the anime's soundtrack was made by Chrono Trigger and Xenoblade alumnus Yasunori Mitsuda?! Well, that certainly explains why the soundtrack is so awesome and reminded me so much of Chrono Trigger. I think that tells you all you need to know about how I feel about the soundtrack.

The characters are definitely a fun bunch, and I enjoyed watching them grow and bounce off each other, even if Marcille does start off like a stick-in-the-mud sitcom housewife who recoils at even the thought of eating monsters until later. I do feel that several of the side characters feel either a little superfluous or underutilized. Granted, a second season was announced, which may cover the rest of the manga, so for all I know that issue might get addressed. I know the villain has yet to be more fleshed out, and I admit, said villain feels pretty cliche so far. Again, the second season might change this, so for all I know my complaints about him might be moot. But like I mentioned before, I don't really have any strong feelings for the characters. I like them okay, but that's it. I don't LOVE them like others seem to, but that's more of an issue with me than anything.

Another point people might take issue with in regards to the show is that it takes a while to get going. The first few episodes are pretty episodic, not really getting into its groove until halfway through, which is when Delicious In Dungeon really starts to strut its stuff. This is the kind of show that's happy to be what it is and be as weird as humanly possible. I mentioned the show's world building before, and this is where it really shines. It really goes into what the dungeon is, how it works, its ecology and ecosystem, what the monsters in it are like and what their behaviors are, and so on, really making it feel like a real place with its own set rules as opposed to just some no-name fantasy land that's just there for an isekai protag to get transported to. It almost reminds me of Twelve Kingdoms or Escaflowne in how fleshed out its setting is. Seriously, more anime and manga need to do this, and KEEP doing this! Good thing we have more well thought-out fantasy series like this, Frieren, and Witch Hat Atelier bringing us all the goodness, because the anime industry is in dire need of fresh, pure fantasy series again.

Yeah, I'm with the fans with this series: Delicious In Dungeon is a fun, goofy cooking fantasy series that still manages to be intriguing and thoughtful, and the team at Trigger did a great job at bringing it to life. I haven't become a diehard fan of this series, but I can definitely see its appeal now. I do plan on watching the second season, and I should probably check out the manga, as that has more details that the anime didn't adapt. So yeah, definitely check this series out if you want your fantasy/cooking fix.

LightningTopaz · Dec 24, 2024

Hear hear on more fantasy series with good worldbuilding--we can do better than generic fantasyland #83738347.

Juliko · Dec 26, 2024

This is the last review I'll post on the blog for this year. Kinda wish it didn't have to be this show though.

Rating: 53/100

Man, it sucks when I can't enjoy something. It especially sucks when it's something you were looking forward to. The subject of today's review, Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians, or Mahoutsukai ni Narenakatta Onna no Ko no Hanashi, actually has a bit of a story behind it. In 2018, a company called Project Anima held a contest allowing entrants to submit ideas in the form of novels, scripts, manga drafts, illustrations, and so on, and the winners would have their pieces adapted into anime. MahoNare, as I'll be referring to it for the sake of brevity, took the grand prize for the contest's fantasy/another world category, and the anime was set to air in 2021, but for some reason was delayed. Luckily, the show was set to debut in October of 2024. And hey, I'm always down for more cute witch/magical girl stories. Unfortunately, MahoNare wound up not being one of the better ones. This one had the potential to be good, but squandered any opportunity it had to rise above being mediocre.

The story centers on a young girl, Kurumi Mirai, who loves magic and wants to be a magician. When she was little, she met a magician who gave her a mysterious notebook, which Kurumi finds out is given to students of the prestigious Letran School of Magic and Magecraft, the only known institution that trains wizards for the International Mage Alliance. Kurumi studies hard so she can get assigned to the Magic Class...only to find that she didn't make the cut, even with her good grades. Kurumi is crestfallen, as she's always dreamed of becoming a magician, but now that that door is closed to her, she's resigned herself to being stuck in the Standard Class, where they study anything but magic...until their homeroom teacher, a strange, tiny woman named Minami Suzuki, announces that she's going to teach magic to everyone in the Standard Class, status quo be damned. But Minami's brand of magic isn't like the magic that Letran usually practices. Is there a chance for Kurumi to finally fulfill her life-long dream after all?

Yeah, this show is pretty much trying really hard to be Little Witch Academia. Let's be real here. Magic school, girl who seemingly can't do magic, a stoic rival with a girl posse who at first hates the MC but later becomes her friend, you've seen it all before. The plot of the differences between ancient and modern magic give off High Guardian Spice vibes, while the side plot of gatekeeping magic brings thoughts of Witch Hat Atelier to me. I will admit, one thing MahoNare does have going for it is its art design. The actual animation isn't much to write home about, and it does its job decently, both the fantastical and the mundane, but its art direction is quite honestly beautiful. It's not the most visually striking show in the autumn 2024 season, but it has a style that's all its own, with charming, watercolor backgrounds straight out of a children's fairy tale, full of whimsy and eye-catching vibrancy. The character designs are fun too, done by Lily Hoshino of Mawaru Penguindrum fame. I have less to say about the soundtrack, though...how in the hell did they manage to get Yoko Shimomura to work on this?! I do not remember her working on anime soundtracks unless they were tied to a game adaptation or something, like Legend of Mana. Though if I'm being honest, this isn't one of her better soundtracks. I couldn't tell you the first thing about it, or the ending theme. The opening song is nice though, and it's done by PuffyAmiYumi. Kinda nice to hear them again. What was the last thing they worked on before this? One of the endings for ReLife, which was in 2016? Dang, that's a long time. Good to know they're still active!

Unfortunately, that's all the positive things I have to say about MahoNare, because everything else about it is a mess. First off, this show has way too many characters. Not as many as Lapis Re:Lights, but 12 episodes is not enough to handle an ensemble cast this big, and they don't get fleshed out beyond their one archetype, so they all come across as extremely bland and one-note. As a result, the series feels really cluttered. A lot of them feel like they're just there to take up space and not much else. Hell, one girl doesn't do anything outside of translate what Minami's pet frog is saying to Kurumi and Yuzu and just disappears, so she comes off like a random plot device than a three-dimensional character. Even the two main girls, Kurumi and Yuzu, are as cliche and bland as white rice. Yuzu just feels like a knock-off of Diana from Little Witch Academia but without everything that made Diana work as a character, and while Yuzu is the only one who gets any real, noticeable development, her change from stoic alpha bitch to Kurumi's closest friend seems to come out of nowhere, feeling more like the writers wanted to change her character when it was convenient rather than actually showing her changing.

Going back to Kurumi, as much as I want to like her arc, she honestly feels like a side character rather than the main protagonist. All throughout the series, she hardly ever does anything on her own and spends a lot of her time being indecisive or angsty. There were so many times where I wanted to smack her because she spends so much time whining and unable to act when it matters most. She doesn't manage to do anything noteworthy until episode 10. A character like her might have been fine as a side one, but she fails to deliver as the main protagonist. In all honesty, Minami feels more like the main character than Kurumi does, because Minami is the only character who really moves the plot forward in any capacity. I wouldn't blame anyone if they thought she was the main character, and I feel like the show would be better off if they focused more on Minami than the kids. Also, some of the characters' names are really dumb. Lemone Juicy? Really? Why would you name someone that? Speaking of her, good God her voice is screechy and annoying as hell! Also, there's one point where one of Yuzu's girl posse gets angry at Kurumi for supposedly stealing Yuzu, but this never gets followed up on, so any development she could have had is just thrown out the window.

Though that's not even mentioning how slipshod the story is. MahoNare feels like a longer show that's crammed into one 12-episode season. A good chunk of it just focuses on boring, boiler-plate magic school shenanigans, more interested in meandering and goofing off than actually telling its story. The plot doesn't kick in until a quarter of the way through, but even then its execution falls extremely flat in every way. I have to go into spoilers here because my complaints about the story won't make sense if I don't explain them in detail.

So it's revealed that the principal of Letran, Northern Harris (Seriously? Who names their kid Northern?), designed a magic system that makes magic more convient for himself and anyone he deems worthy, but it comes at the cost of their energy and lifespan, and ancient magic is actually magic from nature itself, which he sealed away for...some reason. Yeah, the show never really explains why Northern hates ancient magic, and his evil plan makes absolutely no sense because of it. Honestly, Northern himself is a terrible villain because not only does the show not go into more detail as to why he believes his cause is better, which definitely would have helped, but he comes off more like an entitled brat throwing a tantrum because boo-hoo how dare they hate his method of doing things. He has no charisma, no flair, nothing to make him stand out from your regular Saturday morning cartoon villain. For comparison's sake, I've been playing Metaphor: ReFantazio recently, and I find the character of Louis Guiabern to be a fantastic villain because not only does he get shit done people's opinions be damned, he's actually smart and charismatic, knows how to persuade others to his point of view, has an understandable backstory that informs who he is without excusing his actions, and absolutely owns his villainy, but has enough nuance, self-awareness, and depth to him that the story actually works with a character like him driving it. Northern is just...a mediocre villain who, in the end even when he gets defeated, doesn't even learn his lesson because the show ends on a dumb cliffhanger revealing that he has other stuff going on. I'm sure MahoNare is trying to go for the message that modern conveniences don't always work when the chips are down, but if you ask me, Witch Hat Atelier handled the whole gatekeeping magic for the elite plot better.

Actually, beyond Northern being a half-baked bad guy, MahoNare doesn't even bother to answer a lot of questions or resolve its plot threads. Why do most of the staff at Letran turn into animals? The school nurse is apparently a cat, but why does he change into a cat? Is it some kind of curse? And what's the deal with that kid who claims to be Kurumi's brother? Why doesn't he ever talk to her? He spends the whole series just standing around and being mysterious, and he never so much as interacts with her. How does he fit into this whole mess? Does Kurumi even know she has a brother? The show never explains this kid's motivations or what his end game is, and the cliffhanger ends with him getting kidnapped. Like...the show has so many questions that it doesn't bother to answer or resolve, and there's no confirmation of a second season right now, so what was even the point of all this? This is what I mean when I say MahoNare feels like a longer show compressed into a format that's too short to handle it. It sets up these plot threads and characters acting in the background but refuses to really do anything with them. Hell, Kurumi never even finds out that Minami is the magician she met years ago (Yeah, I figured this out in episode one because they're voiced by the same person. Minami doesn't even bother changing her tone of voice), nor that her grandmother was a Letran student too.

Tl;dr, MahoNare spends more time goofing off and on a cliche "stop the machine from blowing up and destroying everything" plot than actually answering important questions, developing its characters, resolving important plot threads. It tries to do too much, none of it gels together, and the show has no room to breathe as a result. God, I really hate that I couldn't enjoy this show, because it does have interesting ideas. But the staff made to work on this were just not the right people for the job, and there are so many other series that tackle this premise or similar ones better, like Witch Hat Atelier, Little Witch Academia, The Worst Witch, The Owl House, and so on. If you want a short, breezy witch girl series to show to your kids, MahoNare is fine, but has nothing of real substance and has nothing to offer beyond its shiny, sugary frosting. Seriously, just check out the stuff I mentioned above, you'll get much more out of them than Stories Of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians.

Juliko · Jan 1, 2025

This review was started on September 17th, 2024, but not finished until today.

Rating: 68/100

(This review discusses both the first season and Repeat)

Have you ever watched a show, read a book, or played a game that you really want to enjoy, but there are either one or several big things about it that prevent you from enjoying it as much as you want to? Well, unfortunately for me, Non Non Biyori is one of those anime. Which is weird because it has a lot of things that I normally love: a strong focus on its atmosphere and daily lives of its characters, good animation, a nicely fleshed out setting, and a down-to-earth plot that's more interested in the mundane rather than a larger conflict. The story itself focuses on a bunch of kids of different ages living their quiet, mundane lives in the rural countryside, where the big city might as well be another planet to them and their school is so small that all grade levels are in the same classroom. Normally I'm totally down for stories like that. One of my favorite movies is this French movie called Petite Maman, which is extremely minimalist in its presentation, premise, and execution, but I consider it a great movie because of its lack of interest in melodrama. I just started playing Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, which is a video game where you play as a little boy spending his summer in a quiet seaside town in the 70s, and I absolutely love it! So why don't I like Non Non Biyori, which is similar to those stories?

One of the things Non Non Biyori excels at is conveying the beauty of Japan's rural countryside. There are several beautiful, well-composited shots of tall mountains, sprawling rice fields, and stunning vistas that you can't see anywhere else, sometimes with long stretches of silence to really sell its calm, tranquil mood. It even extends to scenes of characters doing mundane things like practicing the recorder, walking on an empty road, learning how to ride a bike, going through their morning routine, and so on. The deliberately slow pacing also helps with this, as nothing ever feels rushed, and the series allows you to just sit back, relax, and take everything in. Another thing that helps the series be digestible is that the content of each episode is divided into two or three segments, not really following a strictly linear narrative making you go from point A to point B, so if you finish one segment, you can use that time to put the show on pause, take a quick lunch break or go to the bathroom, and not feel like you missed anything.

So what exactly soured me on the series, you might ask? Well...a lot of it stems from the fact that it's a comedy, and a lot of its comedic moments tend to be very hit or miss for me. Anything involving Renge just being a kid, getting the wrong idea about stuff because she's a gullible six-year-old, or going on adventures always worked, because kids Renge's age have done things like that at least once in their life. Hell, I was a gullible kid who believed everything I was told and never questioned it even when it was obvious what someone told me was a complete lie. This show captures the feeling of being a kid more than any other recent series about just a bunch of kids growing up and nothing more. It doesn’t aim at the complete picture, but it doesn’t lay things too thick or too thin. It doesn’t focus on the darker parts of being a kid, just the random ones, and even with that it doesn’t lay things on too thick. However, a lot of the show's comedy comes off as really shallow in that it mainly consists of just re-using the same jokes over and over long past the point they grew stale. Komari is constantly picked on for being short and acting like a kid despite her attempts to seem grown-up, Natsumi is always getting into hijinks and causing some degree of trouble, Renge's sister Hikage is constantly boasting about her experiences in Tokyo but gets upstaged by Hotaru, Kazuho is a lazy teacher who can't be bothered to do anything (And how she even still has a teaching license is beyond me), and so on. The show is constantly reusing the same jokes and gags, and it got repetitive after the first three times, so anything not involving Renge is just dull.

Not only that, the series would much rather regurgitate its unfunny gags rather than develop most of its characters beyond their stereotypes. Poor Komari is literally there to be the butt monkey and constantly have jokes made at her expense, which got old really quick. Out of all the characters, Renge and Candy Store are the best ones in terms of their development and chemistry, and I think the show is at its best when it's focusing on one or both of them, because the writing focuses more on their bond and fleshing them out rather than the comedy. Hotaru's a nice enough character, but she doesn't really stand out compared to the rest of the ensemble. There is one character who I legitimately cannot stand, who is the vehicle through which the series' unfunny comedy is most omnipresent: Natsumi. Seriously, every time she appears, I want to smack her, because not only does she spend 95% of the series being nothing but an annoying, unrepentant, selfish brat who constantly causes trouble for people, she never learns her lesson or from her mistakes at all! She'd much rather place the blame on others than acknowledge her own brattiness and grow up a bit. But this series is constantly shoehorning her into the spotlight, having her take up the majority of the series' screentime, all of which could have been spent on fleshing out other, better characters who clearly deserve it more. Honestly, the only episode that didn't make me hate her is one episode of Repeat where, for some reason, the girls decide Natsumi shouldn't be a tomboy and force her to wear dresses and become more feminine, because Japan loves enforcing strict gender roles I guess. Man, this is the second series I've seen where a show makes me feel sorry for a character I hate, with the other one being Astro Boy 1980. Not that this changed my opinion on Natsumi in any way whatsoever.

That said, Non Non Biyori isn't a bad show just because it has some annoying characters and hit-or-miss comedy. The animation does its job for character motion and there were never any points where anything looked off-model, but the backgrounds are a feast for the eyes, really selling you on the beauty of the rural countryside. The overall soundtrack is fine, though the recorder noises could be grating at times. Though speaking of grating, I didn't like both opening themes, mainly because the singer's voice is so grating and painful to listen to. Sorry Nano.ripe, I know you're trying, and I'm sure you're a perfectly nice person in real life. But my ears legitimately cannot stand her screechy, nails-on-a-chalkboard voice. How she still has a singing career, I have no idea. So yeah, I wish I liked Non Non Biyori more than I do, but a lot of its choices really soured me on it. There's a movie, some OVAs, and another season after this, with said third season adding more characters...though do I really want to put myself through more of Natsumi? If you like Non Non Biyori, that's wonderful, and don't let my feelings on the series stop you from watching and enjoying it.

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