Scalpelexis

There are tons of high-quality anime set during wartime (not girls in tanks or with propellers on their feet) that also bravely take on political and social subthemes, and 86 is definitely one of them. The alternating confrontation between the progressive and San Magnolia residents and the almost Nazi-esque ones and their racist conscription of non-whites into dirty life-or-death battlefields is decently handled, and even if this makes the romance-tinged Romeo and Juliet storyline predictable, none of it bothered me. But what grates rather more than less in the first half is the story and execution. We're kept on healthy emotional alert throughout, whether through fierce spider-mech battles or heartfelt political declarations, but the series can't manage a very deft handling of the ridiculous amount of tasks it has to accomplish in the opening episodes. Every now and then it spouts exposition out of thin air like a La Palma volcano. It knows full well that it has an overwrought ensemble of characters, but its effort to get rid of them are inept. Then we spend far too long on boring Skyping, only to spend the last 2 episodes not knowing what to do with all the extra time. In terms of quality it trends in a true sawtooth pattern, up and down, thankfully coming to an end right at the beginning of the second part. As soon as the series doesn't have to explain anything anymore, it revs up to an absolute maximum in all areas. For me, both the civilized and endearing passages about the newfound life of outlaws in an advanced society and the relentless, adrenaline-pumping racket were handled so well it was unbelievable. Suddenly, the anime seemed tangible to me, and so believable; I could empathize with the feelings of the main characters as they struggled with their new sensations of regular life, followed by the strangely antithetical withdrawal from the war that had raised them. The tenderness of caregivers, the fun and comfort of a good Christmas, and yet on the other hand the anger and despair from an unexpected blow: I experienced all of this as well. The 16th episode was fantastically heartbreaking, while the last episode made me shed a tear of happiness. I'm glad that for once the content above all of the 2nd half is up to the standard of the excellent graphics and music from A-1, who to my great joy announced that they would be continuing with this project. For the 1st "bark" I would hover around a respectable 3 stars; I will unashamedly give the second half a weaker 5 for how I gulped down 86 with gusto.

86 knows how to reward the viewer. Everything we deserved and wanted. More please...?

Wow! I wasn't expecting such a racket from 86, but this one thumped through all open channels. Exactly what the chef ordered.

A minor aggravation. The first action sequence, as the sneaky mechs duke it out amongst the ruins of the city, had gusto, and Sawano musically enjoys these moments. Except that the transition into the school lecture squeaked worse than an unoiled door. The more observant will immediately notice that the show needs to present us with the collision and ideology of both worlds to give us a minor excursion into the geographic past of the stage, and in the context of being meaningful, this was simply pointless, almost embarrassing. It would require the leading lady jockey to know her stable inside-out despite the silly implications of late night chat adventures, is far from a convincing delivery.

Akame ga Kill! meets Cyberbunk. This relatively entertaining ride through a futuristic world with elements of dictatorship literally almost shattered into pieces halfway through. What at first appears to be a more ordinary gangster adventure of one extraordinary group of criminals eventually unfolds into a Matrix-like plane and starts waxing poetic about horizons farther afield, whereas they can only touch on them in an annoyingly fleeting manner because there's no time for more! To its immense detriment, it's not just the potentially rich worldbuilding that's being skimmed over, but also the characters, where you can strongly feel the colorful handwriting of the creator of Danganronpa. As it grinds on and on and on in a rather nonsensical manner, the protagonists only manage to fulfill their basic justifications and only minimally do we get to see their roots, leaving them boringly parked in the black-and-white and tired templates of familiar archetypes. I wanted desperately to know more about Kant, more about the social structure, propaganda, connections to other worlds and what the local "Big Bang" was/caused by, whereupon we get our answer in a fast-paced penultimate episode full of deus ex machina, which I would figuratively liken to spitting in the face, in an already over-the-top conclusion. It’s made up to us in the lavishly colored and stylized audiovisual design of Studio Pierrot, which is easy on the eye. The detail of the action scenes is fantastic, with explosions that would make even Michael Bay jealous, all culminating in a supercharged epic final act of battle royale format. Akudama Drive could relatively easily have been a masterpiece, it just lacked the desire to grow and go deeper. It hurts, it hurts, because the excellent passages in the opening half were entertaining. This way, it's a kind of undercooked one-off that will soon be forgotten. A better 3 stars

I've had an aversion to abstractness since I was a kid, and in the case of Arcane this was helped by my long-standing dislike of League of Legends. I didn't believe you could make a quality animated series based on fictional characters that didn't have as sophisticated a background as other similar previous projects that didn't even land well themselves. Wonder never cease, and especially this minor point: Arcane actually achieves nearly 6 stars out of Whirlpool's 5, and even that rating is still a few percent off in my biased eyes. While the story is fairly unoriginal and alternates between the stale plot standards you'd see in any similar sibling rivalry story whose scope has significant geographical and political ramifications (ok, maybe not enough of them fit that description), it's truly put together in a detailed way. The solidly depicted bipolar world is filled with characters with deeper motivations, rational and conversely psychotic reasoning, under the baton of perfectly tight direction that gradually adds to the fire until the anticipated ecstatic finale. I absolutely must single out the excellent sense of art as the camera leans towards exploring previously unrecognized angles and excellent visuals (it took about an episode to get used to it), enticing you to explore every millimeter of it, which you never fail to do, gladly and repeatedly. The action is dense: Whether whizzing past or in slow motion, machine-gun battles or mano-a-mano, not holding back even from a glimpse of less comfortable images. The modern pop soundtrack didn't blow me away, but I would praise the fitting dubbing. Arcane is exceptionally over-the-top in just about every column, and a rare treat for both younger and older viewers. Despite its narrative clichés, a near perfect animated spectacle.

As always, I have conflicting feelings about the straightforward Aria, which mix together about as successfully as mercury and water. On the plus side, it has a supremely powerful relaxing effect with an up to a 99% soporific success rate, it focuses heavily on documentary-like, almost intoxicating scenery of the city and its surroundings, fans of the letter A will be delighted (only the biker Woody oddly stands out, and not just because of his hairstyle), and the endless goodness of the people here makes the purpose of police and jail meaningless. I don't mind that the universal evil will be most allergic to this ripoff of Venice, but on the negative side, the same allergy applies to the depth of the characters, the humor, and the plot (whereas the 3rd season, Origination, was a pleasant surprise and for that reason alone is by far the best in my eyes). Anyway, anyone who ever gets to see this film must have been through the original series and therefore these aspects can't surprise them in any way and the viewer knows what they're getting into. Even so, it's quite unfortunate that the main "stumbling brick" (I'm not going to use the tired "stumbling block", because that would actually be excessive for describing Aria's problems) is almost identical to the one in Avvenire, namely the friends finding their way back to each other after not even a misunderstanding, but just because of a strange and banal disparity of feelings that could never cause any kind of disagreement anyway. Normally, I would forgive Aria any reason to take a scenic ride on the gondolas again, gaze at the quite charming streets of Neo-Venezia (and at the same time not to have to see the prudish President Aria or to avoid the altogether hollow caricatures), but please don't make the girls bigger drones in such an unpleasant and already repeated way. The proof of this mediocrity is ultimately in the fact that the flashback from Origination, which I love and know so well, was the part I enjoyed the most. For sure J.C. Staff managed to dust off the visuals and take it up a notch in quality, though even by the end they were losing their grip on it and the character of clumsy Athena started to get proper and uncharacteristic fan service in there, but that can be forgiven for the minutes that had come before in terms of aesthetics. Overall, though, I was sadly unconvinced by Crepuscolo (not much of a title, eh?), leaving the letter "e" in the title quivering lest it be replaced in full irony by the much-loved "a" so beloved by Aria, and in the final reckoning, this episode definitely bored me rather than pleasantly rocking me. A weak 3 stars.

[First impressions] After Vinland Saga, I was looking forward to another anime set in Europe. With a setting and protagonist akin to Akari in The Animation, as opposed to the aforementioned gondolier in Neo-Venice, young Arte struggles to make it as a painter in Florence in an era when ladies were allowed to pursue the field as no more than a form of pastime. The slight feminist undertones are understandable, but what bothers me are the typical shōnen elements. While Arte is pleasantly passionate and single-minded, she acts a bit like a clown without any reasonable self-reflection on the possible consequences of her decisions. I'm also a little uncomfortable with the typical Japanese characteristics of medieval European behavior, such as bowing with arm sweeps and/or phrases like: "I look forward to working with you!". I was hoping for something similar to Nodame Cantabile, since Arte is a bit reminiscent of Nodame, but it looks like this anime will stick to a slightly more lighthearted storyline. Edit after the last episode: First of all, my apologies to Jeoffrey for spoiling the show with my comment :-) About halfway through, I sadly thought I'd take one more star off Arte's rating not only for the inane attempt at romance, the repetitive jokes on account of Arte's antics, but mostly for the heavy wallowing in the "One Thousand and One Problems of Women in a Man's World" theme. I understand women had it tough at the time, but at the very least, the viewer expects the plot to use this ethical issue to build and nurture a payoff. Wrong. Arte doesn't use the gift of opportunity to sell female ingenuity or creativity to overcome those obstacles; instead, she tragicomically reverts back to the fundamental idea: just be a man. Fortunately, Arte picks up by the second half, and even though it doesn't devote itself much to art, it starts serving up relatively sweet stories about interpersonal relationships that, while lacking a lot of depth, are moving (the 10th episodes always tend to be the best). When all is said and done, not much happens; everything is actually nice, everyone is nice in the end, and everyone understands what’s right at the most important moments. Relatively adequate for a less intellectual relaxing movie. For 3 stars.

Babylon is an unprecedented piece in anime history for its political/legal/psychological approach. While most of the time we're treated to intimate detective work from the perspective of special investigator and die-hard fighter Zen Seizaki, the series is pretty much a reflection on the controversially shaky subject of euthanasia. The intentions may be as pure as the proverbial lily, but Babylon is more concerned with the most catastrophic scenarios on a global scale, as the protagonist is literally pitted against a demon from the deepest hell. The direction of the first 7 episodes relentlessly whips the thriller genre into a frenzy, and the last of these episodes is an absolute treat in my eyes on an emotional level that had me absolutely shattered. The constant use of dark colors of dirty grey dealt hope one blow after another and it was beautifully pessimistic to have any hint of a win in sight. For me, unfortunately, after episode 7, the series downgrades from a furious five to a lethargic two and bites of a philosophical mouthful that it couldn't swallow in 24 episodes. Incomprehensibly, we are introduced to a plethora of new and fairly uninteresting characters who open up the script from the last few episodes of NGE and childishly ponder what is good and evil. The anime began to bore me madly, and I found myself stumbling desperately towards yet another adrenaline-fueled conclusion that admittedly closed a few doors, but left a lot of them open for nothing. The mild electric shock stings, but the unsympathetic discarding of any effort to resolve the bigger issues combined with the uninspired second half left me slightly deflated. Overall, though, I consider Babylon to be an unusually sweet attempt at political drama and a narrative about truths that are damn uncomfortable. Too bad about the slight derailment at the end, but I'll give it the weakest possible 4 stars.

[Season 1] For too long I've been determined to throw Beastars on my viewing menu. Not only was I gritting my teeth a little at what I’d heard and rolling my eyes at the thought of what roughly happens in it, but I'm also generally not a fan of CGI in anime. Some of these assumptions didn't fundamentally change after viewing it, but at least more insights were added; not necessarily bad, but not good either. The most interesting part of it all is what turning humans into anthropomorphic animals will do with all the obvious themes. If this were a story with ordinary human characters, it would have difficulty achieving the ethical, moral, and physical conflicts that this anime manages to outline. It would hardly be about half the population living in fear that the day may come at any moment when some abstinent predator decides to have you for lunch. Also, the issue of relationships is suddenly all over the place when a chicken and a crocodile can fall in love, and Beastars isn't afraid to go all the way to bed with both problems. I was therefore stiffly uncomfortable in places, which is a kind of audition on the part of the filmmakers to see if it will hold up, because at least in this series everything had a certain boundary it was pushing. The characters are frighteningly far from perfect and quite often artificially play at being sophisticated, generating a slight stuffiness and tension and injecting a serving of unpredictability into the plot. Questions over the workings of society are constantly in the air, forcing me to either ponder or vehemently continue watching. And while the romance in the Japanese version can be incredibly drawn out, awkward, and corny here and there, Beastars handles it sensitively without ever threatening to fall into soap opera waters. Production-wise, you have to bow down to the guys from Studio Orange: the computer animation is excellent, rarely getting in the way of anything unfinished or spastic, and I got used to it very quickly. If other CGI anime had looked like this, it might have diverted my prejudice and mild hatred of them. Beastars managed to adjust my anime self's acceptability of several variables that a nastier inner self would never have given a chance. I recognize that for a lot of these, it's an overly thorny path and it will soon turn around. What doesn't devour me, though, in this case entertains me. 4 stars