Jeoffrey

Killing of an ugly CGI scorpion is definitely a worthy activity, at least it should never return to be seen on screen ever again... No matter how I look at it, the main thing this movie accomplished was helping me to realize that Ryuu Lion is the most interesting and compelling character in the entire Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? universe. She should probably get her own series, which would probably turn out better than Sword Oratoria spin-off. Anyway, back to the movie. Another realization that I had is that I must be getting really old because Hestia and Liliruca and their jealous outbursts were actually not entertaining at all... On the other hand, Werf was again alright, he had at least one really memorable moment where I remembered why I consider him to be the best male character. Bell is still Bell, he dreams big, he lives life to the full (like a proper shonen main male protagonist) and for some mysterious reason, women fall at his feet. If it were any other white-haired main male protagonist, I could have understood the legions of female fans, however, with Bell, I find it just does not feel right somehow, even though he keeps (not) trying so hard... Nevertheless, it was a pretty good fantasy movie, or rather one of the slightly better ones, although I swear to all the gods you are not going to get more than 6/10 from me.

Initially, I had only read the English synopsis, and so I had great expectations - I thought that this was going to be like an animated version of Monster Hunter: World! I was expecting some thrilling expeditions into the heart of an unexplored continent, capturing that amazing atmosphere where you discover something new and unexpected every other second. After all, a brand new continent with dangerous flora and fauna offers inexhaustible possibilities for a skillful screenwriter. Another one of my expectations was that it would have fight scenes with a variety of great monsters! I guess that makes it all the more disappointing that Magmel of the Sea Blue really contains the bare minimum of what I have described. It is largely made up of stand-alone episodes, there are fewer forays into the unknown than I would have expected, and it is certainly not half as original and surprising as I would have liked. The fight scenes are not really very dramatic, and for example, the last one with the character turning into something like pink bubblegum and throwing "tentacles'' everywhere was just laughable. The whole of the (three-part) final story arc was what definitely ruined any reasonable impact it could have had on me. There was no interesting focus on Magmell, which could have been the biggest draw of the whole anime series, and instead, the anime’s creators tried to appeal to the audience's emotions. SPOILERS. They did not, however, do a very good job, and I was once again incredibly disappointed and even quite irritated by the classic "plot armor" they had for all the characters END OF SPOILERS. It could have been better if it were at least delivered in some nice and colorful graphics, however, even in terms of the animation it is certainly not a showstopper... This was another big disappointment of the spring 2019 releases. 4.1/10.

The second season of One Punch Man is clearly worse than the first, even though the question is still how much worse?... Opinions vary, with die-hard aficionados of the show either not wanting to admit the show got much worse, or blaming it all on the J.C.Staff animation studio, who, according to them, did not put as much (finances, heart, effort...) into this second season as the gentlemen from Madhouse studio, responsible for the first season, did. Be that as it may, the quality of the action scenes deteriorated - this is a fact! Saitama, the main male protagonist, has considerably less screen time (this is also a fact), the show has a flat arc, where people grow around him whilst he is just seemingly floundering in search of bugger all (throughout the whole of the tournament), and attempts to deal with his existential crisis, even though even this is not as interesting as I would have expected. Then there is the narrative itself. There are a lot of other characters, although most of them are probably quite forgettable, so I wondered why they were necessary. There was a war brewing between the heroes and the monsters, and I was admittedly a bit on edge wondering how it would turn out, and waiting for the main male protagonist to start to figure it all out (and apart from a few brief scenes, like the end of the last episode, I was coming up pretty empty), I guess that is all. As for how epic of a conflict that was supposed to be, I just feel like, OK, although it was not nearly enough! In a nutshell, the second season is mostly a disappointment for me, although again - how big a disappointment was it? I certainly would not agree that this was a disaster of Jar Jar Binks proportions, and to give it, say, a “BOO!" or one-star seems grossly inadequate to me. Plus, in some of the scenes, Saitama's lines, and his behavior actually made it more enjoyable (unexpectedly). Personally speaking, although I always consider whether I am enjoying something as an important factor, I actually enjoyed this season considerably less than I would have liked. Despite that, I am not going to relegate this season to the "mediocre anime series" category (and I did not consider about bellow average rating even for a moment), because after all, it is still quite funny in places... So, in the end, I am going to award the weakest four stars - 6.5/10.

The third season of Bungo Stray Dogs is like a carbon copy of the second. It once again starts with a flashback, and once again we have some "major conflict" in the second half. Although the first half of the season failed to engage me that much this time, thankfully, the second half was much more entertaining, more thrilling, and more imaginative. So it redeemed the overall impression I had of the third season (I wrote something similar about the movie, didn't I?), and I thought that the ending itself (the last part) could have deserved quite possibly five stars. So, it is safe to say that this time around I still did not find Bungo Stray Dogs disappointing, and when I worked it out in my head, I came up with something like 7/10.

So what do we have here? There is a scruffy, bespectacled kid with self-esteem issues who is supposed to be the club captain. There is a tough delinquent with a heart of gold and a tragic and complicated past. There is a likable and charming girl again with a complicated past. There is another girl with confidence and self-esteem issues. There is a professor (who supervises the club) who has a complicated relationship with music. There are the delinquent's friends, at least one of whom (a blond) also has self-esteem issues. In other words, what looks like a collection of case studies for a school psychologist is stuffed with a bunch of (way too many) clichés and tropes in the narrative typical for this genre, and yet, is surprisingly a relatively well-oiled machine and a likable anime series. In fact, most of the clichés and tropes work quite well, the dramatic scenes are suitably tense, the characters can be both cool and understanding at the right moments, and so Jeoffrey, as a viewer, found them believable most of the time, and they actually complemented each other perfectly in the most important moments. I, therefore, found a lot of the characters quite likable and I also found their fears believable. I was rooting for them as they struggled to get as good as possible at playing the Koto. Unfortunately, the further I got into the narrative, the number of clichés coming up were becoming more and more obvious to me. Even the handling of those key moments in the Koto Nationals competition itself (where everything was supposed to look as epic as possible) was a bit jarring for me. Plus, for example, the big performance at the end of the thirteenth episode, which was supposed to be, in some part, the best of what the group had played so far, did not really leave me feeling like it was anything spectacular, unlike the audience in the show, and the drama around Kudo and his hand (which is another great narrative cliché) was also not as dramatic as I was used to. In conclusion, at one point Kono Oto Tomare! Sounds of Life was the BEST of anime season Spring 2019 releases, however, unfortunately, my interest is rather slightly waning, which may be a big problem when the second season drops in October 2019. The first one narrowly came away with 8/10 in the end.

It is a shame that the few glimpses of some interesting ideas in this show were only glimpses as almost every one of them was completely underdeveloped, and almost everything came across very badly. I have even read one review which said that this is kind of like an animated fantasy version of Avengers. I can somehow understand how the reviewer came up with this, although for me personally, it is a bit like comparing diamond and graphite, because although both are kinds of carbon... People wanted this to be a cool show, however, a lot of the scenes that should have been cool look ridiculous. The comic interludes that are supposed to relieve the cool tension are often embarrassing, and what am I supposed to think of a team that does not even believe in its own brand name? I thought the main villain and his girlfriend were the most interesting characters in this show (and they were the ones who changed my overall opinion after the last episode) and the whole emerging race of Demonoids was probably the only thing that interested me more. The main male protagonist is totally over-hyped, someone has to go on about him a minimum of two times every episode, and the fact that he “does not know when to stop” is supposed to be funny, even though it is not. The romantic subplot is going to be the main reason why harem fans will quit this show, and because of how dumbed-down it is, so will many others. Though then again, it is still better than Twilight... As for the rest of the good characters, I bet you are going to forget most of them within a week, or else - I am going to forget them within a week... Oh well, and yet with a little imagination, better protagonists, and a bit of quality workmanship, it could have been maybe even an overall decent average (because some of the fight scenes looked pretty good), however, according to my own evaluation I am awarding it 3.5/10.

For a lot of male viewers, I think that The Helpful Fox Senko-san would be a dream come true as the ideal woman. Which man would not want to be regularly spoiled by an adorably cute and understanding partner? Who would not be happy to come home and feel like they are able to survive almost anything? Plus, because of the last few minutes of each episode, you could try to put yourself in the main male protagonist’s shoes and be pampered at will (thanks to the first-person perspective camera view) by Senko and her friends. Plus, you are therefore probably going to be able to get Nakano's obsession with foxtails if you like soft furry things. However, I refused to let myself get carried away and so completely drunk on the magical and lovely atmosphere this time. Even though Senko was incredibly cute, her friend Shiro also had her own charms, and I thought it would be nice to be spoiled in this beautifully illustrated and colorful world, somehow that happy smile did not appear on my face, which would signify I was not finding it that enjoyable. What was stopping me from enjoying it more? I think it was perhaps the main male protagonist's excessive fascination with soft furry things because all I could think of when I heard the word “foxtail” was something about an ebonite rod being rubbed with a fox’s tail. Or perhaps it was that somehow it just seemed like it was mostly the same thing happening over and over again? Or perhaps the fact that I know that someone like Senko would probably never exist in real life had a negative effect on me? Whatever it is, I just cannot see myself awarding this show more than 6.2/10.

Fairy Gone is attempting to be a complex show, and so there is a lot going on (soldiers fighting, politicians scheming, people investigating stuff, and a lot of different secrets holed up behind closed doors). However, I am disappointingly sorry to say that I found most of the first twelve episodes quite boring. I was originally going to write about how mediocre the show is, although the honest truth is that the last couple of episodes of this first half of the season convinced me that I was enjoying it much less than the word average would suggest. The fight scenes did nothing for me, and the way the "fairies" were represented was nothing that impressed me much. I practically couldn't care less about the characters, and for example, the only thing I found most interesting about the male protagonist was his name - Free Underbar. Anyway, no matter how much the anime’s creators tried to conjure up some atmosphere, I was mostly bored and grimacing, thinking, for example, "This song is not really appropriate for the scene right now" or "The showdown looks awkward". It is just that even though Fairy Gone is trying really hard, I did not find it that interesting and that is why I probably am not going to watch the second half of this season in the autumn... 4/10.

"Natsume's Book of Friends" is one of my favorite shows, so I really could not miss this movie released for the tenth anniversary of the anime series. However, in all honesty, I was not completely impressed. The movie is very good, however... The beginning lacks that classic ease that is so characteristic of this anime series for me. In the beginning, it is even slightly confusing, and it seems as if the cinematic Natsume has no idea what he wants to tell, so the movie is jumping from one subject matter to another and gradually (= very slowly) interweaving them. However, it eventually all works out, the narrative accomplishes what I expected from it, and there is again that pleasant magical quality that has put a smile on my face so many times - in other words, all those seemingly disparate pieces from the beginning come together to form a very enjoyable puzzle. Nevertheless, I could not forgive them for the fact that I watched the first half of the movie (almost an hour) sort of half-assedly, wondering what would come out of it and how some things were connected, and even a triple helping of my favorite cartoon cat could not possibly redeem it... 7.8/10.

I thought this show contained a great good combination of action sequences with narrative, and at times it had a very good philosophical dimension to it. In other words, there is a discreet conversation about, for example, the value of the greater good, who has the right to decide what and when a person is a person, and what that actually means. Also, to stop it from becoming boring, they kill some demons in the process! Speaking for myself, it was a cool trip. I found it quite interesting and gritty (as it features real issues like hunger, prostitution, war, and death). I was also carried through it by quite believable and likable characters. In conclusion, this is what a good and well-balanced anime series should look like to me. 8/10.