Anime
•Kowloon Generic Romance ⍟⍟⍟
-Promising start, interesting cast of characters, interesting setting and mystery
-No time to breathe, speedrunning the mystery too quickly, disappointing and dull "answer", abrupt ending
•Natsume Yuujinchou movie 2 ⍟⍟⍟
-Youkai half is dumb filler crap
-Tanuma half is interesting and should've been the entirety of the movie, plenty of room to expand
-Tanuma needs to stop being such a doormat
•Natsume Yuujinchou season 7 ⍟⍟⍟
-Some really, really good episodes, some okay ones, and some absolutely dull ones
-The best season that's been made in terms of quality and episode plots, in retrospect
-Favorites: Nishimura episode, Matoba episode, Reiko episode
>>Nishimura episode is the best in the whole season, possibly the best Natsume episode for me. It's one of only two episodes that actually feel creepy, and it's interesting to see things from the perspective of one of Natsume's non-spiritually inclined friends when it comes to spooky stuff.
>>Reiko episode is the second best in the season, also possibly for the whole series so far, this is what I wish most Natsume episodes felt like. These kind of gems of an episode instead of all the boring, youkai filler crap that feels like it's just checking a box off. This episode hurts for once. The anime is really bad about lessening the emotional impact of events from the manga. It's nice to finally let things just be sad without needing to stay in "comfort" land.
>>Matoba episode was great, almost perfect, but it should've been two separate episodes. Both feel like they could easily be expanded to full episodes, and I find the bookends halves of this one to be pretty terrifying. This and the Nishimura episode are the only two episodes in the entire series that have actually felt creepy to me, like proper horror stories. I wish Natsume did more of these kinds of episodes every now and then.
•My Happy Marriage ⍟⍟⍟
⇴Season 1 ⍟⍟⍟
-Interesting start, love the characters, but drags at times and sometimes drama feels like it's just there for the sake of it. A very realistic depicition of how a victim of long-term abuse functions and how that can effect future, non-abusive releationships. Second half was less interesting than the first and climax was kind of meh.
⇴Season 2 ⍟⍟⍟
-Creepy villain, some tense moments and good action scenes. However, the season seems to meander even more than season one and the very last bit of the climax was again, not that interesting. Some parts of season two feels like a repeat of season one.
•Dragonball Daima ⍟
-GT was better.
•Dragonaball Super: Super Hero ⍟⍟⍟⍟
-Piccolo, Pan, + Gohan movie. Love it. Fun, early DB-like humor. Lots of laughs from me. Love the old references.
-Animation is awful, but everything else is so entertaining, I can overlook it. I wish this movie looked as good as the Broly movie.
-Having to make me look at blue haired Trunks is an automatic minus one star
•Dragonball Super: Broly ⍟⍟⍟
-Beautiful animation. This is the best DB has looked in years.
-Strong first half, though I didn't care for the rewrite of some famous Bardock scenes and skinny kid Vegeta. Very DBS-era trash there.
-Second half is bland fighting brainrot that goes on too long, then just abruptly ends the whole movie. This movie could've been so much better than what it was. There was so much potential.
-This Broly is so much better, design-wise and personality-wise, than OG Broly
•Look Back ⍟⍟⍟
-The manga for me was a low four out of five (
Goodbye, Eri was better), but the movie was less good. I admire the artistic work done, but at times it was very Oscar-bait with the music choices and what scenes were overemphasized compared to the manga. It was alright, but at times, I was starting to cringe at how dramatic some parts were compared to the manga. It's an okay adaption of a manga I'd rate itself just barely skirting into that four out of five for similar dramatics and the plot itself bordering on trauma porn. Given the likely real life inspiration for a certain part of this, the trauma porn element is especially ick. I choose to presume the intentions of the mangaka and the film makers were not to make light of that event though, but I can certainly see why it bothered some people.
•Yu-Gi-Oh: Dark Side of Dimensions ⍟⍟⍟⍟⍟
-I didn't expect anything great out of a movie made for a TV series that ended years and years ago with a very conclusive plot, but this is perfect. A great Kaiba movie. As a Kaiba fan, I was very pleased. I usually watch YGO dubbed, mostly out of nostalgia, but for this, I always watch it in JP. It looks beautiful, it captures everything great about the original, and has a satisfying ending that feels like a true, proper ending for the series even more than the original ending. Love it. Rewatch it all the time.
•Nier: Automata ⍟⍟⍟⍟
-Rough start, some slow bits here and there, and quite a lot of dull characters in the peanut gallery I don't give a shit about, but overall pretty good. I actually prefer the swapping of Adam and Eve's order of deaths. Animation was mostly consistent and good.
-Death fatigue, which the game also had the same problem with anyway. At a certain point, after a lot of deaths that are already supposed to be impactful, the more it goes on, the less I care about people dying. The order of the deaths doesn't feel like it lends well with this either.
-Loved how they animated 9S here, especially during his mental breakdown. Having him blindfolded most of the time and this also being 2D animation, they really leaned into emoting alot with the bottom half of the face. Something I've noticed a lot of anime jsut doesn't bother with as much these days, relying too heavily on just the eyes and eyebrows. I'd like to see more of this back in anime.
-I really, really did not give a shit about most of these characters though. I was fully invested into watching Adam spiral, cared a lot about 9S and 2B (and A2 to a lesser extent), but yeah I couldn't give a shit about anyone else in this. I kinda felt sad watching Jackass die, but only a little. Haha, am I heartless?
-They really did just leave video game mechanics in the anime, huh? That was...something.
-Yoko Taro has a lot of great ideas, but they work better as small narratives. Nier: Automata feels like several barely related stories stitched together rather than anything cohesive, some of them work really great, but it doesn't feel like the pieces belong together. But this is just issues carried over from the game. I feel like he'd be better just writing short stories/making short games, but people think long=good these days.
Movies
•What We Do in the Shadows ⍟⍟⍟⍟
-Fun movie with lots of laughs if you enjoy vampire lore. Petyr was my favorite. Poor Petyr. Silly, charming, a bit dark comedy at times. Overall, an enjoyable experience.
•The Little Prince (2015) ⍟⍟⍟⍟
-A very meta movie about the experience of reading and analyzing
The Little Prince in reflection of one's own self. I liked the first half a lot and thought the added parts around the actual story were good. The movie faulters once we're in the girl's dream and we suddenly need to do kid movie stuff for theater audiences. You can tell certain scenes and shots solely exist for some bullshit marketability crap. It disrupts the flow of everything before and after that point. I didn't really care for the majority of the girl's dream when she meets the adult prince. I feel like the film also would've been better if the entire thing looked like the parts retalling the actual book. Sad that the lamplighter got cut for time. It has a nice ending to it and overall, it's a nice little movie about the book, though not a proper adaptation of the work.
Series
•What We Do in the Shadows ⍟⍟⍟
-Initially poor start, trying too hard to copy the movie but with more edgier, crass humor that typically doesn't land. Finds its footing by season two, but ends terribly with its final season. God, what an awful season. There are some really great episodes (Jackie Daytona, the Jersey Devil, Colin meeting Evie), but overall, the series is just kind of meh. The final season is outright painful to watch. The poo poo pee pee porn jokes were old from day one, and they just never let up on that shit. The only time one of the jokes like that got a laugh out of me was the time Guillermo was eating those caffeine-laced snacks and he spilled them all over the bathroom and Nandor thought he shit all over the floor. That was it. Every other time got an eyeroll.
-My main issue with the series is it's constant bringing up different people and plot threads that ultimately don't really go anywhere. We're introduced to a freshly turned vampire girl early on and she quite literally just vanishes from the plot. Ditto the tragic love thing with Nadja. Whatever the hell was going on with Colin and the original of energy vampires. There's no direction. The show, prior to the final season, would be at its worse whenever it did those dumb vampire council focused episodes. I hated these. But the corporate stuff in the final season was far worse, which was really weird for me because I previously loved Colin's office drama antics the most out of anything in the show. Somehow, once everyone's dicking around in the office, all the fun is sucked right out of it.
-Colin went from being my favorite character to by the final season, I just didn't want to see him at all.
-I liked Guillermo initially as well, then kind of just didn't want to see him much by the end.
-Hated every single celebrity cameo. Always took me completely out of the episode. At first, they were at least vampire related, but then it was just look, a B-tier famous person! I don't care. Quit interrrupting the show!
-Overall, I'd never rewatch the whole thing, but I'd probably rewatch very specific episodes.
•X-Files ?????
⇴X-Cops episode ⍟⍟⍟⍟⍟
-This is hands down the best episode of X-Files. A crossover with Cops of all fucking things. Amazing. This episode is an analog horror episode, and it's pretty well done. They go out of their way to not use too much special effects. Most things are practical effects and kept as realistic as possible to maintain the illusion of it being an episode of Cops. This is pure 90s nonsense. There's a lot of humor in this episode, and it's legitimately interesting trying to piece out the mystery of what's actually going on. It's also a pretty progressive episode for the time period, in terms of queer representation. In the era of bury your queers and constant queerphobic plotlines and insults, it's surprising that the queer couple in this episode are one of the only ones who cannot be killed by the monster and the reason why is also interesting.
⇴Home episode ⍟⍟⍟⍟
Truly the most disturbing episode of the series. It's the goreist, most brutal episode and there isn't even anything supernatural happening in it. It's all primal. I've seen this episode four times. I don't plan on watching it again within the next decade. This is an episode I have to take years apart in between viewings. What makes this episode extra disturbing is there's not really a happy ending either. Looking information up about this episode last rewatch, I learned the family from this episode were featured again in some comics. Things only got worse, somehow. Given the disturbing events in this episode, M & S come off a bit sociopathic in their nonchalant behavior in certain scenes, which is the main negative in this, and is unfortuantely a major issue with a lot of detective and cop shows. Like deaths merely exist to be plot points. That may technically be true within the writing, but having your characters treat it that way as well doesn't make for good writing. Or at least, it doesn't portray the characters in a good light, and typically, it's pretty obvious that isn't the intent of the writers.
Pixiv ID: 85082857
Pixiv ID: 18302514
Pixiv ID: 73110986
Pixiv ID: 42599649
