Jeoffrey

I have been wondering for a long time if there is anything unique about this anime series apart from "being about vampires". In other words, I am wondering if there is any good reason to give it a better than average rating. In the end, I found nothing to warrant that. There are just some cute girls messing about with cute vampires. The vampires do not suck blood, but rather order it through Amazon. They do not bite, but rather just flirt with the cute girls occasionally and do all sorts of supposedly cute vampire things. However, it really is cute (which you can tell just by the fact that I have written the word cute five times already and I have no desire to rewrite this...). The show occasionally caused me to smile here and there, and I probably liked all the characters, especially the main two protagonists. While I am actually quite satisfied, I somehow still cannot bring myself to award it more than 6.3/10.

Fishing in space may sound interesting at first but unfortunately in reality it is a lot more boring and stupid than you would think. The show features girls who just did not really appeal to me, even though I usually like freaky, energetic girls. I just could not get along with Haru, for example, and she was so annoying I got a headache. The other girls in this show are pretty stereotypical and the fact that they each speak a slightly different dialect does not help them to be more original than girls in other shows. Likewise, it does not have any interesting or entertaining storylines, and so my mind started wandering and at least twice thought of some resolution that was much more interesting and dramatic than what the anime’s creators had come up with. In the end, I had to pretty much force myself to try and watch more episodes and I could not keep up really, so this was one of the first anime series I had to take a break from. Then, when I went back to watch it again, I found that by episode eight I had just completely lost interest... So I thought “why should I force myself to watch any more?”. I have really seen enough and I am sorry, but "cute girls doing space fishermen" (to prove to everyone that it is not just a job for men!) was completely boring. Dropped after the eighth episode and 3.5/10.

I am going to start with what I thought was the biggest problem with this movie, i.e the fact that everything is way too predictable. They leave nothing to the imagination, leaving no surprises, and so you know exactly what is going to happen as soon as you are introduced to the characters. You can work out pretty early on how it is all going to end. When that “fateful moment” arrives, you are already expecting it because the timing is just completely obvious... In other words, if you have already seen a few (well, at least a few dozen) romantic movies (I immediately thought of Sweet November with Keanu Reeves), then this is nothing you have not seen before. Also, if you have seen any other romantic Japanese movie, then you can easily predict the outcome of most of the situations in this movie in advance. After saying that however, there is a certain beauty in its simplicity, and so I can see why the reviews of this movie were full of confessions about how the reviewer(s) in question cried like a baby. In conclusion, despite how gauche and obvious it is, it all works well, and in my opinion, you can actually grow to like the characters. Even the dialogues are very well written and so the movie manages to be touching at times. I guess this is a really good melancholic movie, although because I am only awarding five stars to things that genuinely blow me away, I cannot give this movie full marks. I watched this movie intensely, and although it was melancholic and joyous at the right moments, unfortunately, it never actually touched my heart, which is hidden deep down somewhere. 7.5/10.

The beginning of this anime series was quite enjoyable, the first couple of episodes were interesting, as they introduced their well-designed concept of different parallel universes. On one hand, everything seemed nicely mysterious, and on the other hand, it was also fun. I also liked the ending (the last three episodes or so) because there were some scenes which seemed quite original. The villain turned out to be someone different from whom I had expected, and even the second to last bad guy (the teacher) had his strong moments ("you know how everyone is now complaining about the magical girls who are transforming into heroines" ..."). Even the repetitive mantra-like message about how you must stand up for yourself and, most importantly, challenge yourself if you want to grow as a person, was present in this show. I also quite liked the soundtrack. Well, yeah, but none of that matters as I quite often got bored halfway through the season. The individual narratives based on other realities were much less interesting than I had first expected, and basically, the same ideas were repeated three times. It is just that each time they featured a different girl, and during the "wild west" part I realized I had just grown tired of it. Similarly, the supposedly dazzling and glittering CGI fight scenes were not at all impressive and only seemed to confirm that anime series featuring protagonists who can transform rarely impressed me with their transformations and subsequent fight scenes. The characters in this show seemed quite contradictory. I liked all of the Asukas and one Yuu, although the others did not interest me really, and so I did not care much about them... In conclusion, I thought this anime series was just a little bit better than average. 5.5/10.

This is a thoughtful poetic movie about two girls and in parallel, it also depicts a fairy tale, as a story within a story about a lonely young woman and a cheerful blue bird. Because of the pleasant presentation, pretty good minimal-style background music, and a very good ending (who Liz and the bluebird actually represent...), this is definitely a very high standard production that deserves a lot of praise. The initial slow pace almost put me to sleep, however, soon I was getting into a very enjoyable narrative that appealed to me as much as the original Sound! Euphonium anime series did! (By the way, you do not have to watch Sound! Euphonium to get into this spin-off sequel at all). This movie is all about feelings, and it gets quite emotional as the affection the two main female protagonists share gets very complicated and ambiguous in places, just as it would in real life. I am also going to add something as I did not say it before regarding Sound! Euphonium - that, under certain circumstances, because the emotional aspect of the relationship between the two main female protagonists is portrayed in such a beautiful way, this (and Sound! Euphonium) could be the greatest example of Girl’s Love (yuri) anime I have ever seen. As it is, it is probably (albeit ambiguously and in a complex way) "just" about a very strong friendship, even though it is also very beautiful. 8.4/10.

So ended the first anime series of the fall 2018 releases, and while the conclusion was actually quite acceptable and perhaps quite enjoyable for me, I still could not shake off the impression that I did not feel like I was actually watching anything compelling. The subject matter was not so bad, I even quite liked some of the characters, even though I still had to force myself to watch other episodes rather than looking forward to them in any way. I do not want to explicitly say that it is the fault of this anime series, or that maybe they somehow did a bad job when creating the atmosphere. However, throughout the whole thing, even the biggest surprises and twists not even once engaged me in any real way. So while I may have been watching a fairly well-thought-out narrative, it is probably not going to be that memorable  and I am probably going to forget Derrida and the others in a few weeks. 4.6/10.

This is definitely a very strong and really emotional movie, featuring lessons about what motherly love means, what it means to live life to the fullest, and other subject matter that has some depth. However, it still manages to present everything relatively naturally (although the feeling that it is a bit forced emotionally gets a bit too much sometimes). It has some beautiful moments that grabbed me and touched my heart (though I fought back the tears in the end). It also has some visually beautiful scenes (like when Maquia is kidnapped by the dragon, and when Maquia leaves Ariel after the battle...) it has some wonderful music on the soundtrack, with the final song accompanying the credits being the icing on the cake. This is definitely a very good movie that will move sensitive people a lot, and at least sometimes give perhaps tougher people something to relate to. Of course, I know better, stronger, and more moving movies (like Wolf Children for example), however, I am still glad I sat down and watched Maquia on a chilly afternoon because the movie actually warmed, pleased, and saddened me in equal measures - it just worked. 8.3/10.

Somehow I just cannot think of anything to say about an anime series mixing Joan of Arc with the Philosopher's Stone other than that it just seems like a bunch of tedious crap to me. Dropped after episode four - 2.5/10.

This was a strange psychological anime series that had a promising and mysterious beginning. However, it turned out to be very ambiguous, and the show had a lot of allusions without really saying anything. I guess what the show’s creators really meant to convey and how it actually ended is perhaps going to be the subject of much speculation for a long time to come. Like in the final scenes: what was meant to be a reality, and what was just in the girl's imagination? There was a bit of allegory, there was a bit of philosophy, and a lot of food for thought for the audience. However, did it all affect me deeply in some way that I in any way found the narrative absorbing and so gripping I could not sleep? Well at times it did have a very pleasant atmosphere (sometimes the soundtrack was excellent), and I was quite taken with the central two protagonists, and sometimes I even thought for a moment that they would... Perhaps this is a brilliant production that I just did not appreciate, and perhaps this is just pseudo-philosophical psycho-babble that is really pretentious. Well, I for one am not really sure at all, so I am awarding it 6/10.

Creating something appealing, intelligent, interesting, and entertaining - something you can enjoy every moment of - can seem difficult, although occasionally there are some shows that convince me that it is basically terribly easy. For example, they have to be able to get the characters and the atmosphere right and do things like mix something unnatural (and it does not have to be supernatural like it is in this show) with something completely natural. It requires finding the right combination of characters so that the chemistry works. It also has to look good and sound good. This anime series has it all! It is simply always a refreshing feeling to come across a character like Sakuta - incredibly honest and yet so ordinary, amusing, and relatable at the same time. Plus, with a charming, intelligent, and interesting girl like Mai by his side, it makes for a couple that works well together and is a joy to watch and listen to. There are also a few other interesting supporting characters, plenty of girls who need some help with their problems, and Sakuta just has the bad luck to attract these types of people. Does that sound like something you have seen before? Perhaps, but no... This is because no matter what problem the main male protagonist is facing, the anime’s creators manage to end it all in a way that often (except maybe the first two cases) turns out completely different from the usual clichéd way, and at the same time it feels completely natural and normal. Because of this, you do not have to have a problem with the supernatural goings-on, because everything, including the behavior of the characters, seems completely acceptable and endearing - just believable (including all of Futaba’s scientific analysis). Furthermore, if you know how to use atmosphere, i.e. entertaining and amusing moments plus touching sad scenes - then you have a winner. Someone like Jeoffrey is enthralled by this show, he finds it enjoyable and wishes in his heart he could be as direct and wittily sarcastic as the main male protagonist, and he also dreams of having such a wonderful girl as Mai... I have been mesmerized, entertained, and supremely satisfied = I think this is the BEST release of the anime season Fall 2018 - 9.5/10.