With all the talk of AI, especially when this site has been ravaged by AI bots, I think this anime will be a warning.
Blade is a former hero given a second chance at the prestigious Hero Academy with the intention of making as many friends as possible, starting with class Queen Earnest Flaming, he gradually wins over all the students especially the female ones by being the most broken invincible character possible.
You can immediately see better versions of each character in other anime, it's been a pet peeve of mine for a while now but whenever it comes up it bears repeating, if you are doing an expy of a famous character, don't make it so bloody obvious!
Sophie is a clone who is an expy of another clone who copies the abilities of the hero and like AI, can't quite do it, and she's the main subplot of the anime, the rest is stupid antics with no stakes, just someone's poorly drawn male fantasy, it's cheap, it's boring, it's not even funny and it's exactly the type of shit AI would create, the only real shocking thing about this anime is that it wasn't created by AI.
No dub, but I can immediately see who would voice which character.
Final Verdict: It looks, feels and plays like an AI slop anime but it was made with human hands, these titles worry me as this sort of generic anime is becoming too normal.
Footnotes - If we ever see an actual fully made AI anime, then that means I have to praise every shit anime I've ever reviewed for being made by human hands.
I never want to give them that kind of credit, so keep that AI machine away from anime, otherwise this is the type of thing it will create.
It's been so long.
Yohane having failed an audition to become a great idol, reluctantly returns home to the quiet town of Numazu; reunited with her doggo guardian Lailaps, Yohane attempts to rediscover herself and discover a side of Numazu she didn't expect to see as she makes friends with other local girls all the while a dark miasma attempts to disrupt Yohane's new life.
If you think this sounds like Love Live or even looks like Love Live, you'd be correct as it's part of the same universe, however just like Love Live it lacks uniqueness in it's cast with some designs being recycled, the supernatural elements do little to change the fact that this story really doesn't work, Yohane herself barely saves her character as she starts off quite selfish.
The anime just suffers from an identity crisis, not enough idol to be idol, not really fantasy enough to be a fantasy, not enough slice of life to slice up, the anime is stuck in this unhealthy balance.
At least it was wholesome.
No dub to speak of.
Final Verdict: A hodge podge of genres that are all fighting to control the series
These gender wars are getting out of hand.
Hibiki is a mechanic from the all male planet of Tarak, while preparing his mecha with his new part, an attack by pirates from Mejere causes an incident that fuses the pirates and Tarak's ships together, Hibiki along with two others get captured by the all female pirates, thrown into an unusual situation and faced with a new threat, the all female led crew must work with their male prisoners to survive.
A fascinating look at the ever opposing forces of men and women produces some interesting insight into the way the two worlds are run.
The following exerts are taken from TV Tropes.
Tarak: The world of the men that's based on totalitarian and militaristic societies. Due to being on a desert planet, they have little resources and focus on efficient use of resources. They focus on mobility, practicality, and one's inner strength in order to survive... to a fault, as everyone is essentially conscripted, there is no social mobility and there is zero tolerance for self-expression, only service and all-encompassing conformity to the Tarak ideal.
Mejere: The world of women, coming from a lush world full of Crystal Spires and Togas. They are very technologically advanced with a culture the polar opposite of the men. However, due to excessive waste of resources and hyper-competitiveness, they are plagued by internal conflicts amongst themselves which has generated a hub for Space Pirates that attack both sides.
In short, Tarak is basically Russia while Mejere is basically United States
But we don't see Tarak or nearly enough men to really give a solid argument as the cast is mostly female and you can bet that there is a lot of straw feminist moments that derail alot of the character development in the story, it's not as egregious as Ben-To and Love Hina's Ume and Naru who pretty much hit men for breathing wrong but considering that near the end of season one, the crew suddenly turn on the male characters for a mere accident and misunderstanding which nearly gets the crew killed, Duelo had the right attitude, wait for it to blow over.
Not all the cast are like this, the older cast along with half the pilots are much better representations of women and when only two out of the four men shows any kind of maturity, there's very little to play off.
It's complex story notes can make this a chore to watch but has some fun and heartwarming moments.
Dub is pretty good a high standard of the era.
Final Verdict: it's decent and compares favourable to Nadesico and Captain Tylor but be prepared to deal with frustrating moments.
The Boulder is conflicted.
Taken from the final episodes of K-On season 2 and expanded to include the Graduation trip to London, our favourite light music club is readying for graduation, but not wanting to leave Asuza without giving her a parting gift, the rest of the band use the trip to London to gather inspiration and create ever lasting memories but the girls find the culture shock of London a little complicated.
My main complaint is that they didn't spend nearly enough time in London, considering the pain staking effort to animate actual locations from the city, it feels disappointing that only half the film was spent there while the other half could've been done in the series, it leaves an ending with no epilogue, something a show like this would benefit from as we kinda want to see if the now adult light music club still make music together although the music video style openings at least imply that at least Mio makes it as a music sensation.
Sub is much better in the movie but the dub is otherwise high quality.
Final Verdict: I maybe wanted a better send off for K-On but the film itself is at least enjoyable.
Time to review my niece's favourite movie.
Long ago, Gwi-Ma unleashed hordes of demons to feed on the souls of humans until three women demon hunters with golden voices created the Honmoon barrier to seal them away, generations of female trios would lend their voices to reinforcing the barrier up to the current generation Huntrix who are a step closer to creating the final Golden Honmoon.
Before they could finish the final song, Rumi is conflicted by her heritage as a half demon, to make things worse, the demons unleash a rival boy band called Saja Boys led by Jinu who discoverd Rumi's heritage.
This movie really lives up to the hype it produced, it helps that the lead girls in Huntrix are a mixture of girl boss done right with goofy personas already making them endearing to the audience far more than any female leads in the past five years, even the male characters are brilliantly made with an adorable manager and Jinu being devious enough to make anyone believe his self made sob story.
As much care that was made into this, it sadly looks rushed, I was told there was enough content for a three hour film and they had to rush alot of the plot to cut running time, if it were a three hour film I doubt my darling niece would mind but I think it would've out stayed it's welcome.
KPop culture I'm mostly indifferent to, granted I'm old and was probably put off by Gangnam Style being overplayed, but I do see the appeal looking at bands like Blackpink and BTS who are both very easy on the eyes.
Final Verdict: I can't really give this film max hype as it's obvious it's rushed and not enough characters get screen time but what we did get was a solid film that deserves all its accolades.
