Twin Star Exorcists Ep 7 Impressions

Disliked this episode.

I don't believe the chemistry between the 2 leads. In fact I feel there is none.

Like bad actors with no chemistry in a film, it's just awkward and not believable.

The episode was useless I'm sure there were better ways for the 2 to build chemistry and gain backstory.

The whole thing feels juvenile, I don't mean in theme because it's a shonen it's to be expected, I mean in execution.

Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta? Ep 7 Impressions

An enjoyable episode with an intriguing cliff hanger.

I believe whenever the characters say "that's what a normal student would do" etc the anime means that's what a standard romance or harem trope would be.

I like how the anime is self aware of what usually happens in a standard beach episode and pokes fun at it.

In regards to Ako still thinking she's married in real life I secretly ask myself what is wrong with that?

She fell in love with the mc as person, not a character sprite.

The love is now reciprocal so why not just go with it?

Perhaps Ako is right and the others are wrong about this.

Yes ako should be able to differentiate the real world and game, but perhaps changing her perspective of her marriage with Russian is the wrong approach.

If I were Rusian I'd be happy, and if their relationship ever gets "downgraded" to a normal bf/gf relationship I think he'll miss it.

It was funny how the whole event was basically just a cash grab for people to buy things at the hotel. The teacher says perhaps this is getting too real, I think this is foreshadowing the ending of the episode. My guess is that someone hacked into Russians account. Russian had trouble entering his password right? I think someone put a dummy site on the computer that looks exactly like the login for the game. The hacker stole Russian's user and password. Besides the obvious possible identity theft, the danger in regards to the anime is that Ako believes the hacker is Rusian, she may get emotionally taken advantage of or get her feelings hurt. What I really hope doesn't happen is if the hacker tells her to go somewhere in real life and she gets taken advantage of physically.

Koutetsujou no Kabaneri Episode 6 Impressions

The show keeps getting better with every episode.

The frustrations of the lack of communication between characters in the early episodes continues to diminish as the characters begin to trust one another.

I never blamed Mumei for acting the way she did with other characters because she was probably raised differently.

With each episode Mumei seems to become more human which is ironic considering she could turn into a Kabane.

I hope we soon discover who Mumei's master is.

Was Mumei's group some sort of black ops special unit against the kabane, which is why no one has heard of the Kabanari?

I thought Mumei was bitten by a Kabane and became a Kabanari, but in the episode she said she was never bitten.

Therefore I wonder if experiments were done to her, given some injections in order to artificially become half Kabane.

Are there differences between people who get bitten and people who artificially become a kabanari?

Would people who got bitten be stronger because they have a more direct strain?

What I am loving the most is the action.

The action is always the best when they are fighting on top of the train.

The speed of the train, the fast moving background, always makes the action feel more fast paced.

Also the animation is so smooth in conjunction with the continues change in camera angle. It's jaw dropping.

In one scene one of the trams of the train fell down a cliff.

What was in that tram? People? Supplies?

At the end of the series will only the head of the train be left?

Lastly I guess Ikoma killed all of the Kabane otherwise Mumei would have found them feasting on his body.

Ikoma said they bit into his stomach or something.

I do hope to have one scene where he's inner organs like intestines are falling out of his body like in the walking dead and him continue to fight.

That would be graphic, maybe too graphic, but I think it would be pretty awesome.

Netoge Ep 7 impressions

An enjoyable episode with an intriguing cliff hanger.
I believe whenever the characters say "that's what a normal student would do" etc the anime means that's what a standard romance or harem trope would be.
I like how the anime is self aware of what usually happens in a standard beach episode and pokes fun at it.

In regards to Ako still thinking she's married in real life I secretly ask myself what is wrong with that?
She fell in love with the mc as person, not a character sprite.
The love is now reciprocal so why not just go with it?
Perhaps Ako is right and the others are wrong about this.
Yes ako should be able to differentiate the real world and game, but perhaps changing her perspective of her marriage with Russian is the wrong approach.
If I were Rusian I'd be happy, and if their relationship ever gets "downgraded" to a normal bf/gf relationship I think he'll miss it.

It was funny how the whole event was basically just a cash grab for people to buy things at the hotel. The teacher says perhaps this is getting too real, I think this is foreshadowing the ending of the episode. My guess is that someone hacked into Russians account. Russian had trouble entering his password right? I think someone put a dummy site on the computer that looks exactly like the login for the game. The hacker stole Russian's user and password. Besides the obvious possible identity theft, the danger in regards to the anime is that Ako believes the hacker is Rusian, she may get emotionally taken advantage of or get her feelings hurt. What I really hope doesn't happen is if the hacker tells her to go somewhere in real life and she gets taken advantage of physically.

Is Konosuba misogynistic?

Preface:

I watched the Winter 2016 season without paying attention to any anime related website or related source. After finishing Konobu I was surprised to see it as a favorite among many of my friends and people I admire and respect in the anime community. So let me first start of by saying I didn’t connect to the series as well as others. I thought it was a fun quick anime to pass the time. This high praise made me start to really think about how I feel towards the series. At a certain point I asked myself “Is Konosuba sexist or misogynistic?” This question surprised me because I am a die hard harem fan and have watched more harem anime than I can count. I write lengthy reviews on random harem shows that no one ever reads. I’m a guy who doesn’t consider myself a feminist. I’m for equal pay for equal work but I’m tired of the media’s frenzy over feminism and personally think many supposed “feminists” have gone too extreme and equate feminism with man hating. I am hesitant to even write this because I know I’m going to anger people, many of whom will scoff at the title and comment on how stupid I am to even question this.

Why Konosuba can be perceived as being misogynistic:

Literally every female character is portrayed as being dumb. I don’t even mean the main cast, even the secondary cast falls victim to this. The only smart one as the anime points out is the male protagonist Satou. When I say dumb I don’t mean not being smart it terms of understanding magic, I mean being generally clueless and lacking common sense. The female lead Aqua is said to have a low intellect, you see her leveling up water tricks instead of more important stats. Another female named Lalatina is a masochist and wants to be abused making her entirely irrational. Megumin is a witch who uses too much magic and needs Satou to carry her, there is a weak submissive female lich named Wiz, a thief girl who becomes a baby once her panties get stolen. In fact multiple females in the show are shown as being helpless and require Satou to come save them. They constantly beg and whine to Satou. There is not one strong female character.

The running gag is that everyone in Satou’s party is helpless making the team dysfunctional. It can be argued that this is the whole point of the comedy show, that is why it is funny. I give comedians a lot of slack when it comes to comedy. Personally I think it’s ok to be sexist in a playful manner but not in a way where there is apparent ill will to whatever group you are making fun of. If you look at Konosuba 90% of the time, the girls are the brunt of the joke. Even Satou the male protagonist constantly berates Aqua. When this happens over and over again at a certain point you begin to wonder if this is becoming misogynistic. Which might be why I was slightly annoyed and frustrated when watching the show. I got bored and tired of it. “Oh look Aqua’s being dumb again, oh look Lalatina wants to be abused again, oh look Megumin needs to be carried again.”

Since watching Konosuba I have watched a random harem anime called Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance and it made me confirm my stance on why I feel the standard harem treatment of women is different than Konosuba. I would say harem anime are sexist, you have girls inexplicably falling in love with the protagonist for no apparent reason. Females can be clueless or stubborn, even the standard strong female falls in love with the MC. But I could never call a harem anime misogynistic. I think a big part of why is because in a harem anime there is still a plot even if it is pretty thin and weak. Throughout the course of a harem anime you begin to connect and care for the females. You see their faults and insecurities, you see how they grow in order to rise up and meet some goal. You mostly laugh at the MC and not at the girls themselves.

On a final note this is all very subjective and your opinion probably differs than mine. My problem with Konosuba is not that it is sexist but that it is misogynistic. I do not believe that every anime needs to have a strong female, I think a lot of recent tv shows and movies have a strong female lead for the sake of having one. However in Konosuba the girls are all perceived as being dumb and in a country like Japan where there is a high degree of gender inequality, where you see females on japanese variety shows just there to smile and look pretty, it all becomes a little jarring. Konosuba is a comedy, a parody in fact so I get where they were going with this; but personally the gags got old over time. Maybe they are parodying the role of women in anime, but honestly I think that is a bit of a stretch. I don’t think the anime is smart enough for that, and if that is true it was never tasteful or clever. Here’s looking at you Succubus whore house and the gratuitous Lalatina bath scene. In Konosuba the girls are always the brunt of the joke, I laughed at first but over time it changed from being endearing to just being mean.

Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance Review

    Blade dance is an underrated harem that has its faults but counters by overcoming common issues within its genre. I have watched a plethora of harem anime and the bad ones usually have poor pacing as well as a lack of character progression. The question every director of a harem series has to determine is how do you balance the amount of fanservice and harem humour with actual plot progression. I have seen a number of other harem anime where a whole episode is spent on harem cliches. For example an entire episode could be spent randomly going to a beach while the world is falling apart. However in Blade Dance the director smartly puts the focus on the plot when needed. Each episode has a healthy dose of fanservice and plot progression to a point where I didn’t feel dissatisfied with either. I would say Blade Dance is about average when it comes to fan service. This is surprising considering the fact that the director Tetsuya Yanagisawa is also the director of Highschool DxD which is the epitome of excessive fan service. The fan service is not too extreme where it feels out of place. The only exception is after an intense battle where the protagonist becomes unconscious, wakes up and usually finds a girl in his bed. That happens a lot, but oddly it acted as a breather for the audience after intense action so in retrospect it does seem to have worked. And if you have to put it somewhere, it’s a smart place to put it. 

    The characters on the show can be hit or miss, both in the characters themselves and how a viewer perceives a character. If you look at popular tv shows with many seasons like the Walking Dead there are well developed characters who grow. In a harem show it is near impossible to provide adequate character progression to all the girls as well as the protagonist while balancing plot progression and harem fanservice in only 12 episodes. Therefore sacrifices have to be made. Most of the shows character growth comes from the female lead Claire as well as the male protagonist Kamito. This makes sense because they are the first characters introduced in the show while the other girls are introduced later. The sacrifice is that while the other girls in the harem are developed in term of breast size, they are not as lucky in terms of character growth. This is fine but it bothers me when one girl in the harem, Rinslet,  inexplicably is not there and randomly shows up when it is convenient. We learn nothing about her, even her personality is very similar to another girl in the harem which makes her entirely forgettable.

    I would say the protagonist is above average. He is clueless like every other harem lead, but he is not a wimp and is competent even though he is emotionally scarred. He is still an enigma both to himself and to the audience, we don’t know what exactly happened to him. However it doesn’t matter because we see his faults and insecurities and can see his growth. The real x factor is the female lead Claire Rouge. Either you love her or you hate her. For a while I hated her, she was whiney and possessive, her traits made her cute at times but at other times she was annoying. However by the end of the show her character changes completely. Personally I believe that actions and decisions make a person. At one point I was thinking, “Here we go again…” but surprisingly Claire makes the right decision and changes completely. Whether this change was rightly deserved is up to the viewer, but I thought this change was refreshing. Looking back her character was a foil to the other characters on the show and even helped to galvanize their own character growth. She literally talked some sense into another character a number of times. Both Claire and Kamito are similar in that they both felt alone, the person they loved abandoned them, but the two learn to lean on each other and others for help which I thought was a well executed theme.

    The show does have its faults. There are times when things just do not make logical sense or when a character seems to contradict themselves. They often seem to break the rules of the world it setup. The art and sound is average for a harem anime. The opening and ending became catchy over time but they are standard jpop tunes and are not exceptional. If this was a stand alone series I think some characters like Rinslet shouldn’t have existed. It felt like she was there simply because they needed a blonde girl in the harem. However this is based on a light novel so I think she had to be there for the sake of the franchise. Considering this fact, the ending while predictable was very satisfying. There are still more questions, the blade dance (battle) between different schools has yet to happen. Will the other girls in the harem figure out the MC’s former identity? What is this demon lord business? What happened 3 years ago to the protagonist and his partnered contract? The show exemplifies a director making the most of what he could in the 12 episodes he was given. I don’t blame him for not trying to fit everything in because it would feel rushed. It is satisfying because the central themes introduced at the start were brought full circle and resolved with characters who smartened up. It felt like the first book of a book series like Harry Potter, even though there is more plot to discover it ended on good note which made logical sense. It is unlikely a sequel will come to fruition but if it did I would want to watch it because I want to know what happens next. If you decide to watch this series you will be surprised by how fast the episodes fly by and how invested you become to the story and characters.

Story: 8.25/10

Art/Animation: 6/10

Sound: 6/10

Character: 7/10

Execution: 9/10

Enjoyment: 8/10

Overall: 7.5/10

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk Review

A-1 Pictures has been a hit and miss anime productions studio. They have given us gems like Your Lie in April, The Flower We Saw That Day, Space Brothers, Gate Thus the JSDF Fought There!, Ao No Exorcist and arguably SAO. But they have also given us duds like  Denpa Kyoushi, SAO II, Occult Academy, Fractale, Uta no Prince Sama and sadly Gakusen Toshi Asterisk. While the list of A-1 anime is varied, the one thing that you can generally expect from an A-1 Pictures anime is good towards excellent art and animation. However every season the question you always have to ask is if the premise, plot and characters live up to that same standard.

Story

Let me first start of by addressing a certain problem I hope does not become a trend in anime. Before going into this anime it is important to note that there is a second season due out in April 2016. In this same season we got the second season of the harem series Shinmai Maou no Testament. The first season ended at this boss fight and the main crux of the story was never resolved. I haven’t watched the second season but I’ll assume it gets closer to having a real ending. In the past there have been harem anime with sequels. I’m thinking of Highschool DxD, Zero no Tsukaima, Rosario no Vampire, Heaven’s Lost Property, The World God Only Knows, Sekirei, Date A Live. Say what you will about these anime but the one thing I personally can say about them is that I feel as though they can stand on their own without needing a sequel.

Unfortunately Asterisk feels like a 3 legged chair, incomplete and uncomfortably so. From the premise I was under the impression that this would be a tournament style anime. There is a tournament called The Phoenix Festa but that only begins on episode 9 out of 12. Therefore I assume season 2 will be all about this tournament and mostly all of season 1 was really just set up for it. There are 4 girls in the harem so really the first 8 episodes was just about getting to know the girls as well as learning more about the protagonist. There were also the standard harem cliches which felt like a checklist of things that had to be in there. I do wonder if it would have been smarter for the tournament to begin earlier and we could have somehow learned more about the girls as the tournament went on. I get that the purpose was so that we would feel more for the characters when the tournament began, but to be honest the matches in season 1 are only the preliminary rounds so I felt no sense of danger for any of the characters. In comparison to Maou no Testament the last episode didn’t even feel like a boss battle, it felt like a normal episode. So what we are left with is a action anime season where the audience feels nothing because there is no sense of stakes and there has so far been no real sense of danger to the characters. It really does feel as though season 2 should have been part of season 1. I really hope harem anime splitting into 2 seasons and having the 2nd season released 6 months later doesn’t become a trend. If Shakespeare can write plays without a needed intermission I’m sure a tournament style harem doesn’t need one either.

Characters

You got the main tsundere girl who's a princess, the shy/timid girl, the flat chested stoic girl and the voluptuous older blonde president. So yes everyone is a trope and to be honest I wasn’t interested in anyone except the blond president Claudia who is obviously not the main girl. To me good characters have to be more than one note, they can’t be 2 dimensional characters (pun intended). Yes every girl has this spontaneous and unexplained love for the protagonist but with Claudia there were these moments where you can just tell that there is more than meets the eye. That this girl is suffering and her cheerfulness is just a facade to hide the darkness inside her. Perhaps her interest in the protagonist is more out of a need to have someone to confide in. The problem is that season 1 didn’t really explain any of it but just gave hints about it. I might watch season 2 just to learn more about her. The female main love interest seems honorable and noble (again pun intended because she’s princess), but in no way is she interesting but simply transparent. In many ways she is Claudia’s foil, where the main girl is usually on screen while Claudia rarely is. Finally about the male protagonist, I get that some people find him annoying and say he’s the typical harem lead. However i would say that a typical harem lead is oblivious, that is something I wouldn’t say of this protagonist. You can tell by the subtle ways the protagonist interacts with the girls that he thinks of some as love interests but others as friends or the little sister type. Also he isn’t dumb either, in battle he is shown to be quite strategic and level headed. He isn’t overpowered due to a concept known as a “limiter” (which hasn’t been fully explained) where his power is restricted. Therefore I would say he is a decent towards good harem protagonist. The only issue I have so far is that as with many other harem protagonists, he as person is not very interesting and always does the right thing. In many ways both the male and female leads of the show are similar in a most uninteresting way.

Art/Animation/Sound

This is probably the one reason to watch the show. Just watch the opening and listen to the ending of the show to get an idea on the art, sound and animation. Everything is just so bright and vibrant, crisp and clean. The score of this anime is very fitting for whatever scene it is in. It uses subtle sound effects in certain places to enhances certain sensations which affects how you feel and interpret a scene. You have minor arpeggio scales on the piano for mystery or suspense, upbeat synth tracks that fit the setting of this high tech world, a snazzy jazz track for some humour. In fact it is rare to have empty spaces where there is no background music in a scene. I feel like it’s important to talk about the battles in this anime. They are by no means the best I’ve ever seen in terms of strategy but they sure are impressive to look at. In a battle there is not just one battle theme, the anime uses different tracks depending on the situation in battle. In battle there were some tracks that sounded like they were from final fantasy, but my favorites were the ones that used synths and techno beats. In terms of visuals, the action flows effortlessly with no drops in frame rate. I was particularly impressed by the use of lighting which made certain sequences seem to glow in surrounding darkness affecting the tone of battle. With the change in lighting they even made sure to effectively include shadow in battle. A scene that comes to mind was when a character is about to meet their end and you see their shadow against the ground representing their doom. There is so much detail, you see sparks, light particles change in air dynamics. I find it amazing that they were able to put so much detail in battle without sacrificing the overall look of the rest of the show. Lastly I want to talk about the weapons in the show. By the end of the series you realize that the weapons themselves are characters in their own right. The weapons are representative of it’s wielder. There is particular care and thought placed into the weapons from their design, colour, sound effects, even the angle at which they are drawn in. Early on I found the scene when the protagonist first obtains his weapon to be downright scary. The vibrating sounds the weapon made were menacing and dangerous like hearing an electric saw inches away from your head. You begin the realize that the weapons themselves seem to harbour certain feelings, they can be joyous or noble, but others can be malice or evil. I commend the anime for using the art and animation to enhance the story.

Final Thoughts

Story: 3/10

Characters: 4/10

Art/Animation: 9/10

Sound: 8/10

Enjoyment: 5/10

Overall 5/10 (Note I deducted a 0.5 due to the lacklustre ending)

Four episodes into the anime I gave it a 6.5/10. In my impressions I wrote

“In recent years similar shows to this series are decent and fine at best but this series could actually be good. I wonder if this concept has been rehashed to such a degree that the imperfections have diminished. Analogous to a chemist purifying or concentrating a certain solution. Perhaps so, perhaps not.”

Looking back I’m not sure why I was so optimistic, perhaps I was blinded by the gorgeous visuals and didn’t put enough weight onto the characters. I was enamored by the setting and wanted to learn more about the high tech society. However by the ending of this season I have not really learned anything new about the world itself. Infact I have more questions now then I did at the start. That is the frustrating thing about this anime, there was opportunity to be better than it is. However the story is told in such an uninteresting way with mostly bland characters. I continuously have to ask and remind myself what the stakes of this anime were. Sure characters have their own motives for winning the tournament, purpose, money, reputation, discovery. The problem is that many of these motives/stakes are glossed over and we are never reminded of the stakes until the very end. The anime fails to follow up on the motives and fails to explain why these motives exist which limits the world building of the show. This makes the anime less engaging. The lack of interesting characters hurts the harem aspect of the show and the lack of emphasis on the stakes hurts the storytelling. So what you are left with is mindless action. However the tournament doesn’t begin until episode 9. So for 8 episodes you have an anime that doesn’t really excel at anything save for the few action sequences and some moe/kawaii scenes if that’s what interests you. This is what I call popcorn anime, anime that is pretty to look at but serves little to no other function. If you are a fan of harems you may be able to get over the tropes and may even fall in love with some of the girls. Personally I’m one of these fans, I come home from school and just want to mindlessly watch something that’s cute, sometimes funny, and pretty to look at while I eat dinner. But for non harem fans, it is a waste of time, equivalent to staring at dynamic/animated wallpaper for a few hours. But hey, at least it’s not static wallpaper.