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Julia's Reviews on Various Media

This review was just finished today.

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I give this dark strategy game about cute animal kids dealing with the horrors of war...a 78/100!

Do you like animal people? Do you like dark storylines? Do you find the idea of children being forced to see the horrors of war and even participating in it fascinating? Then Fuga: Melodies of Steel is the game for you. Published this year by CyberConnect2, Fuga: Melodies of Steel is the latest game in what CC2 calls their Little Tail Bronx series, which encompasses their previous games, Tail Concerto and Solatorobo. I have played neither of those games, and as much as I'd like to, I can't because they're out of print and any surviving games are super expensive now because of their rarity. I don't remember how I first heard about Fuga, but I did find the concept interesting, so I decided to buy it when it first came out. This is CC2's first self-published title, and because of this, they didn't exactly do well in advertising it, as they didn't have the backing of other companies such as Bandai-Namco to help them out this time around like they did for their previous games. Now that I've completed Fuga, I can say it's a very fine game, but I do feel like there could have been more.

The story takes place in a country called Gasco, populated by dog people, called Caninu, and cat people, called Felineko. The neighboring country, the Berman Empire, has started to annex a lot of Gasco's land. But the war is far away from the remote village of Petit Mona, where siblings Malt and Mei Marzipan, their families, and their friends live in peace. One night, the Berman reduce their village to cinders, capturing all of its inhabitants and taking them away. Thankfully, Malt and his friends manage to escape capture thanks to the efforts of their families, but are unsure of what to do now. A voice on a radio leads the kids to a nearby cave, where they find a gargantuan military tank known as the Taranis. Having no other options, the kids decide to reactivate the tank and use it to go after the Berman Empire in an attempt to get their families back, even if it means having to make very hard decisions in the process.

The gameplay mostly consists of you controlling the tank and choosing linear paths to follow, each with varying degrees of difficulty, though the game itself was intentionally made difficult by design, so even the easy paths won't be very merciful. Each character you control specializes in using different kinds of artillery, either machine guns, grenade launchers, or cannons, and you need to exploit an enemy's weakness in order to land damage in turn-based battles, though turn order is mainly decided by a gauge. This does result in the levels being rather straight forward and the combat being repetitive, but I personally didn't mind it myself. Of course, there's plenty to enjoy off the battlefield as well: the Taranis is basically a village in and of itself, allowing you to raise livestock, fish for scrap metal, upgrade the Taranis if you have the right materials, and talk to the other kids, where you can raise their affinity and skill prowess, and unlock little events where they talk to whichever kid you're controlling, though you only have a limited amount of times to do so. Fuga is a game that really wants you to use your resources carefully. To be honest, I wish there were more instances where you could have the kids spend time with one another in-game, as there are very few intermission points, the points where you can actually do that stuff, in every level, usually just two or three per level.

Which leads me to what I feel is one of the weaker elements of the game: The characters. Don't get me wrong, they're all a likeable bunch, even if they start off as rote stereotypes, and the game really tries its damndest to develop them and make you care about them, even in the supplementary motion comic videos CC2 uploads to their YouTube page. But the link events between the characters, while nice, are extremely short, and you're only able to unlock three every time you raise their affinity to certain levels, and while that feels like a lot, it really isn't. They don't have the depth of, say, the skits from the Tales series, nor the longevity of the heart events in Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns. Basically, I just wish there was more. Also, Boron is yet another fat stereotype character whose only notable traits are eating a lot and being constantly fat-shamed by the other characters. Seriously, CC2?! You couldn't put more effort into his characterization?! Not every fat person makes their whole life revolve around eating! Get it through your thick skulls already! Oh, one more thing: There's a character that, without the Soul Cannon, dies near the end of the main story, and in order to prevent that from happening, you have to raise his affinity to level 2 with every other character, but the game itself doesn't tell you this. Also, the graphics and artwork are nice, and the enemy machines are all very impeccably designed as well.

But what the game lacks in in-depth characterization, it makes up for with its story, dark tone, and the lack of sugarcoating behind its themes. Naturally, throwing kids in a war zone is guaranteed to invite sympathy, even if most media's attempts at doing so don't always work due to trying too hard with it or just generally being really cheesy. Fuga doesn't try to gloss over the fact that children barely older than 12 are being forced to participate in a war, or even kill people, nor the horrors that the Berman are committing against the citizens of Gasco. I mean, the World War II and Holocaust parallels/analogues are pretty unsubtle here, what with the Berman being heavily modeled after the Nazis, and an insane doctor committing genocide against a certain species of creatures even while being one of said creatures. One of the most well known gameplay aspects that really hammers this in is a weapon that the Taranis has called the Soul Cannon. If your HP gets below a certain point, you can use it to literally destroy any enemy, but to do so, you have to sacrifice one of your party members to be able to do so, and after the prologue, if you choose to kill a child and use the Soul Cannon, you won't be able to access that character or their abilities or events ever. Plus, the game auto-saves every now and again, so you can't just redo your decisions once you've made them. Although...the game's story and lore do leave a lot to be desired as well, because a lot of the story consists of events being told to us through a narrator rather than simply showing the characters reacting and experiencing them. This is another aspect of the game that leaves me rather meh, as I want to be more invested in it, but having a good 70% of it being only told through narration or by secret files you unlock whenever you beat a level just feels like the creators didn't do more to really incorporate its lore into the game proper. The phrase "Show, don't tell" exists for a reason.

However, there is one more thing about the game that I feel is really jarring: The game has both Japanese and French audio, with the narrator played by different actresses for both languages. But...apparently someone had the bright idea to make the Japanese seiyuu speak French and say actual French words. Don't believe me? The game doesn't have full voice acting, mostly limiting it to certain short sentences or exclamations, like shouting or the occasional grunt, but the characters' voices sound the exact same in both Japanese and French! Now, I don't know if this was intentional on CC2's part, and I'm not an expert on the French language, so I can't comment on whether the seiyuu actually said their French words accurately or not, but it just feels really jarring to me that someone would go to the trouble of training Japanese voice actors to say full French sentences when they could have just hired native French voice actors to do so. Or maybe CC2 didn't have the resources or funds to do that, I'm not sure. But, seriously...why?! If you're going to have a French narrator for the French audio, why not do the same for the characters?!

All in all, that's really about it. Don't get me wrong, I know my review sounds kind of negative, but rest assured that even with my reservations and bafflement with some of the game's decisions, I do genuinely like Fuga: Melodies of Steel. I do feel like, had it really done more with its lore and put more effort into presenting the story and fleshing out the characters, it really could have been a masterpiece unlike any other. But for what it is, I still found it to be a fun, gripping game that does have a lot to offer. It's easy to see that CC2 really wants to make more games for its Little Tail Bronx series, and Fuga got very little in the way of advertising, so if my review can convince someone to buy it and play it, if only so CC2 can see that people actually care about the work they do, then I can be happy knowing that I gave an underrated gem a little bit more appreciation than it's gotten.
 
I started this review on March 30th, 2021, but updated it in light of the special episode that aired at the end of June.

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I give this wild, ambitious, dark anime about girls confronting their problems...an 62/100.

Wonder Egg Priority. That's a weird title if I ever heard one. When this anime was first announced, there was literally no information on it except for it being about a girl and her friends getting eggs from a gachapon machine. Nobody knew what it was going to be...and nobody expected it to turn out the way it did either. Needless to say, Wonder Egg made a huge splash for its luscious animation, dark, heavy story that was willing to push boundaries, and star very flawed but relatable characters that didn't quite fit into the archetypal anime molds that we're so used to. This is especially notable considering this is the product of a small group of animators, a new director, a creator who mostly had experience working on live-action stuff, and a new studio that only just formed a few short years ago. It wouldn't be a stretch to call this one of the most ambitious anime of winter 2021, and for good reason. That being said, as you can tell by my score, it's...not great, and this is actually due in part to a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff in regards to the staff and animation team behind this project. So let's see if we can make an omelet out of these eggs, shall we?

The story begins with a young girl, Ai Ohto, reeling from her best friend's suicide. Having been previously bullied because of her heterochromia, losing a friend in such a gruesome way has made her shut herself at home, so she refuses to go to school. One night while out on a walk, she buries a dead firefly...which reanimates and leads her to a strange place where she is told to get an egg from a capsule machine. Later, she wakes up in a strange dream world that looks a lot like her school, where monsters known as Seeno Evils run rampant. The eggs she's told to break contain the spirits of young girls who committed suicide due to their traumas, and Ai, along with three other girls—Neiru, Rika, and Momoe—have to not only protect the girls from Seeno Evils, but defeat the manifestations of their traumas, Wonder Killers, in order to save the people they hold dear. Thinking this'll bring her friend back, Ai takes on the challenge, but she and the other girls have no idea what they just got themselves wrapped up in.

Not gonna lie, the animation is absolutely luscious. Packed with movement and immaculate detail in nearly every frame, and all of it is always used for a specific purpose, from the flowers and their symbolism to the dynamic character animation. Everything is just brimming with life, from the fantastic use of color to even little things like the way characters carry themselves really show just how much effort the producers put into this. It's practically at the level of KyoAni's standards of animation...although, it wasn't without cost. Apparently, the animation team assigned to WEP was fairly small, so they didn't have a lot of the resources other companies did. Because of this, the production process behind the show was really, really tough. Like, animators being sent to the hospital because of needing to meet deadlines and biting off way more than they can chew tough. I'm not even kidding. Japan's animation industry isn't perfect, as people work long hours for startlingly low salaries, often times to the point of being stuck at work for literal days without end, glued to their desks, which resulted in one animator being sent to the hospital twice due to overwork. There's a reason the Japanese made up their own word, karoushi, meaning death by overwork. I mean, I love when animators really do their best to make a show look as good as possible, but it should never be at the expense of their physical and mental health. I don't have much to say about the soundtrack. The background music is nice, and the opening and ending songs are great too, even if the latter is deliberately unfitting, being a cutesy, peppy J-pop song in a dark urban fantasy anime.

The characters are where things start to get tricky. For one, a good portion of the main cast are very well developed and have a lot of depth to them. They all have their flaws, strengths, weaknesses, and layered personalitites that make them stand above the typical anime archetypes we're so used to seeing. Rika in particular stands out for the better, as although she's mainly on the side of good, she's an insecure teenager and former teen idol who starts off as a mooching little bitch, freely admits to fat-shaming a former fan into starving herself to death (and continues to fat shame her even as a statue), shoulders a lot of guilt because of what her actions caused, and pretty much acts like any teenager in her situation would. That being said, other characters aren't so lucky. Neiru starts off as an aloof girl, but some aspects of her character stretch my willing suspension of disbelief, like the fact that she, a 14-year-old, is the president of a big company. More is revealed about her character later on that...don't make a whole lot of sense. Plus, Momoe's situation is really vague. Just what is her deal? Is she transgender? Does she not like constantly being mistaken for a boy, or girls confessing their love to her? If she doesn't want to be mistaken for a boy, why does she wear a suit and keep her hair short? The anime doesn't really explain what Momoe's issues are all that well.

But I can deal with a lot of this. The story for the first half of the series was intriguing, I liked the mystery aspect, and the idea of these teenage girls becoming friends and helping each other through their issues was definitely very appealing to me. But then everything after episode seven happened. The series started to get really shaky in the eventual reveals that came later, and the final episode...dear God. Derailing is a really big word, but that's exactly what Wonder Egg Priority does in episodes 11, 12, and 13, and I'm not going to lie, Wonder Egg really shit the bed. HARD. No, seriously, I have never seen a series go from so good to just so incredibly BAD in such a short amount of time, especially in the finale, which need I mention, was delayed by two months because the animators were overworked. Aside from the animation and the first half of the story, I honestly can't bring myself to say anything good about the last half of it, from all the piss-poor writing decisions it makes, to the really important plotlines it randomly introduces and then just completely forgets about or straight up ignores in the very next episode (Kind of like how A Wrinkle In Time established this big force of evil that the main kids have to deal with, but then completely forget about it and go about their merry lives at the very end), making the characters act way out of character for no reason at all, completely botching all of the themes and issues its set up (I found an article that explains this in much better detail here), and losing all of its nuance and subtlety. This show would have been amazing if the piss-poor execution in the latter half didn't completely shit the bed and spit on everything the series previously established. Seriously, I could write a better ending to this series that would actually wrap up all of its plotlines, or at the very least present them in ways that are not only cohesive, but not nearly as ruthlessly mean-spirited as the actual show would turn out to be later. It's especially bad when the creators are given time to make their final episode one hour long, but not only do they spend it on a SECOND recap of the series that serves no purpose, but could have used that time to actually address and wrap up its different plot threads but didn't!

God, I really wanted to like Wonder Egg Priority. I really did. It's really sad that the anime turned out the way it did, because had it not been plagued with production troubles, or even had better writers or planning, this anime could have been a masterpiece. It seemed like it was really going to be something different and ambitious. It certainly tried, but in the end, it just fell off a cliff and didn't stick the landing. Wonder Egg Priority, you deserve better. But with the way it is now, I can't bring myself to recommend this anime in any conceivable way.
 
This review was written on July 30th, 2021.

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I give this movie crossover for one of the more recent Pretty Cure seasons...a 79/100.

Anyone who's talked to me at all in the past year and a half will know I've made it pretty clear that I LOVE Healin Good Pretty Cure. I think it's absolutely one of the best Pretty Cure seasons to come out in recent years. It has its problems, and I still think Heartcatch is better, but I just adore it. So of course I was looking forward to the movie that was going to be released for it as well...until I found out it was going to be a crossover with Yes! Pretty Cure 5. First off: Why another crossover? The All-Stars movies already do that! It's bad enough the franchise felt the need to shoehorn in the main Cures for the next series into the finale of a previous one when it's not needed, but the standalone movies are going to be crossovers, too? Furthermore, I have not seen Yes Precure 5 except for the first episode, and I have no intention of finishing it because Coco's voice annoys the piss out of me. Also, didn't Yes Precure 5 almost kill the franchise because the second season turned out really badly? But regardless of my feelings about it, the movie Eiga Healin' Good Precure Yume no Machi de Kyun! tto GoGo! Daihenshin!! exists, and I figured I might as well watch it before passing judgment on it...and because I want to see my precious Healin Good girls again. Now having watched it...yeah, this movie pretty much reinforces why shoving in the Yes Precure 5 girls was a bad idea.

Now for the overall story: Nodoka's mother takes her and her friends on a special trip to Tokyo to see all the sights, something they've been looking forward to for a while. They also get to see a special virtual reality entertainment experience invented by a famous professor by the name of Gashuuin and promoted by her young daughter Kaguya. But a mysterious demon named EgoEgo causes trouble, and with the help of Kaguya and a new group of Pretty Cure, the girls manage to drive it away for now. Nodoka and Kaguya become friends, and the five of them hang out together. But Kaguya is hiding a secret that could very well cost her her life, and her mother, knowing this, is determined to do all she can to save her, even if it means hurting everyone in Tokyo in the process. Surely there's a more humane way to solve things, right?

Since this is a movie, of course it has a higher animation budget than the TV show does, and it certainly shows. The colors are a lot brighter, character motion is more fluid, and the action scenes are full of great choreography. This is especially notable for the Yes Precure 5 girls, as their show, which aired back in 2007-2008, was pretty notorious for...not having much of a budget. This is probably the best the Yes Precure 5 cast has ever looked throughout their entire existence. Also, can I just say how much I love the Healin Good girls' new costumes and power-up outfits? As one-off and Deus Ex Machina-esque as they were, why didn't the show make use of their Partner Forms?! Those would have been a great addition to the TV series, and it fits with the show's themes of animals and respecting nature! The soundtrack is nice as well, though nothing too notable.

The characters are where things get muggy, and have about the same issues as the show. For one, the main characters absolutely steal the show, and the staff behind the movie made sure to capture the charm they had from the TV series. Surprisingly enough, Nodoka's mother received quite a bit of time in the limelight and was even given the chance to be a badass at one point, something I definitely appreciate. But similarly to the TV series, it seems to favor developing and fleshing out one villain over the other one, leaving the second one to just be yet another power hungry villain stereotype who's evil just for the sake of it. But the biggest victims of this were, in fact, the Yes Precure 5 girls. This movie reaffirms my worries about the movie being a crossover, as instead of doing anything meaningful with them and integrating them into the plot naturally, the movie just makes them into little more than plot devices that are just there to advance the plot and nothing else. This is especially jarring for someone who has never seen Yes Precure 5, so not only do they come off as extremely bland, barely being used for anything other than fight scenes, any viewers who haven't seen the show where they came from will just feel alienated, asking themselves "Who are these people? Why are they here? How did they even get here? How do they know about the Healin Good girls? How exactly does Pegitan know where they're even from?!" This is without even remembering that Yes Precure 5 aired between 2007-2008, and Healin Good came out in 2021, so any kids born after Yes's time won't know crap about them unless they found the show on the internet or something. I was told by someone else that the Yes Precure 5 girls being in the movie doesn't alienate viewers who haven't seen their show, but they're deluding themselves. Furthermore, the Yes girls only appear at the beginning and end of the movie, never interact with the main characters beyond action scenes, are only shown in their civilian forms ONCE, and don't directly affect the story in any way whatsoever. You could cut them out entirely and nothing would be lost, which gives credence to my argument that the Healin Good movie should have been a standalone movie JUST about the Healin Good girls, as the whole crossover aspect is the movie's biggest Achilles' Heel. There was literally no reason for the Yes girls to be shoehorned into the Healin Good movie in the first place, and the movie itself provides no in-universe explanation for their Deus Ex Machina-esque appearance anyway. Coco and Nuts in particular were especially useless, and their utterly awful, ear-bleedingly grating voices absolutely did not endear them to me at all. I'm so glad the movie didn't give them much in the way of screentime.

For what it's worth though, the story was at the very least intriguing. I liked Kaguya and Gashuuin's arc and cared about their plight. However, the creators seemed to rely too much on giving the girls random power-ups that come right the hell out of nowhere, hand waving it away with "Your strong feelings give you power!" and some crap like that. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids shows as much as anyone else, but you can't just give special powers to the main characters willy-nilly, they have to earn it, and the story just seemed to pull them out of its ass. Even other Pretty Cure seasons managed to execute this better, like Heartcatch and Suite. Though the worst example of this is still Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure by far. At least in Healin Good, the girls don't get their power-ups by way of...well, dreaming about them while they're sleeping.

So yeah, as much as I wanted to like the Healin Good movie more than I do, its writing decisions and shoehorning in characters from another show that contributed nothing to the movie wound up being its biggest problems. Not only that, Toei doesn't seem to want to stop making crossovers any time soon, as the upcoming Tropical Rouge Precure movie is going to be a crossover with Heartcatch. Now, I love the Heartcatch girls and all, but again, there's literally no reason for Toei to put them in there except as glorified cameos and to sell toys. That being said, I still enjoyed the Healin Good movie for what it did do. Could it have been better? Yes. Would it have been better if it wasn't a crossover? Probably, depending on the staff behind it. But I am satisfied with what we got, and I love my Healin Good girls, and they pretty much saved the movie from falling apart completely. I still think this should have been a regular standalone movie without the crossover aspect, but it's fine for what it is. Normally I'd say to only recommend this if you know about Yes Precure 5 or have seen both seasons of that, but considering the reputation that that season has for...not being very good in a lot of ways, you're not missing anything by watching this even without knowledge of Yes Precure 5. Honestly, I wouldn't want to subject anyone to the bad voice acting on that particular season for 100 episodes (Looking at you, Coco!!!).
 
This review was written on March 2nd, 2017.

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I give this strange, eclectic book...a 40/100.

I first heard about The Categorical Universe of Candice Phee on another website, and supposedly the main character was autistic. It's not stated in the book, nor confirmed anywhere, but it got good reviews, and I was curious. I wanted to see if it was as good as people said. I rented it at my local library so I could read it before deciding whether to buy it or not. Unfortunately...I came out disappointed and have decided not to buy this book. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to like it, but there's just so much wrong with it that it made me feel like I was watching a poorly written Nickelodeon sitcom that was trying way too hard to be cute and dramatic but failing horribly.

So the story's about a teenager named Candice Phee whose life isn't exactly very rosy despite her unrelenting optimism. Her father and uncle are on bad terms, her mother's depressed, recovering from breast cancer, and grieving the loss of her second daughter, and Candice's eccentricities make her an outcast in school. Not wanting to let her family fall apart, Candice tries everything she can to make her family happy again, even doing stupid things in order to achieve this goal. Along the way, she makes friends with Douglas, a boy who was in an accident and is just as eccentric as she, and writes to her pen pal, Denille. The whole book is basically her trying to write an autobiography using every letter in the alphabet to start a paragraph, but she has a lot more to say than academic restrictions would allow.

You'd think that with a premise like this that I would like this kind of book, as it's right up my alley. I really wanted to like this book, but it's so immensely flawed, I don't know where to start. Well, first, the positives: the prose is pretty good and easily understandable, and I did genuinely like the conflict between Candice's father and her uncle Brian, who are both reeling from a nasty lawsuit that left Brian rich and Candice's father both penniless, resentful from having his ideas stolen, and without good income. Normally I'm not into legal conflicts, but I feel Jonsberg did a good job in showing the dispute between the two men, how the fight as affected them both in the long run, and how both of them feel about the whole thing. Considering this is a middle grade novel aimed at older kids, I think he managed to write it in a way that kids can easily understand.

Unfortunately, that's as far as the positives go for me. The huge amount of negatives it has completely dwarf any redeeming value this book has for me. For one, none of the characters are very interesting. Not even Candice, and she's actually the best written character in the book, and that's saying a lot. Her dad is a typical dad, her mother is depressed and spends more time being sad than doing anything useful, her classmates are stereotypically mean and have no depth--Jen Marshall being the biggest and most vulgar offender--and Douglas is the only friend she has. I honestly didn't find Douglas to be interesting at all. He just felt like an adult alien in a little boy's body, and no little boy I know IRL talks the way he does. Plus, with the way his accident is described and the fact that he claims his parents are imposters makes me think he has Capgras Syndrome. It's not stated as such in the novel so that's just my headcanon. Still, even with that, Douglas doesn't really contribute anything other than giving Candice a friend. Ultimately, he's pretty much useless in the grand scheme of things.

Then there's Candice. I wanted to like her, and in some ways, I do, but...some of the things she does are just downright stupid, even for a 12-year-old. There's no confirmed reason for why she acts the way she does and does what she does. It's implied that she's autistic, and I can see a little bit of that. However, last I checked, no autistic person I know of has ever done the absolutely dumb things she has done, some of them being: asking for $15,000 to buy tickets to New Orleans, not being able to recognize when someone is being straight up mean to them in no uncertain terms, and better yet, deliberately throwing herself into the ocean and risking certain death just so she could make her father and uncle rescue her and reconcile and have a magical happy ending like in the movies. Do I even need to elaborate on how utterly and completely stupid all of that is? She really should have known better. I'm autistic and even at 12 years old, I knew even back then that spending huge amounts of money for frivolous things and throwing yourself in the water is a huge no-no. She does get called out on this, sure, but I feel like it came off as a bit hollow, since they hardly ever get mentioned again. That's not to say that Candice is a bad character. She's genuinely kind, determined, honest, will do anything to help someone even if they don't have her best interests at heart, and optimistic. I'd like her a bit more if she wasn't doing all of these stupid things. I mean, characters like Caitlin from Mockingbird and Jason Blake from Anything But Typical do stupid things, but not only are those portrayed as having consequences, but good comes out of them as well, and the things they've done aren't so mind-bogglingly baffling that it'd make you go "What the heck?" Alright, that doesn't sound fair. Everyone in life has done stupid things at any age, autistic or not. I've done some stupid things myself, but never to this extent. Lots of people I know have done stupid things in the course of their lives, but never at 12 years old. So for all I know, maybe I just sound like a stupid brat who doesn't know anything about the cold realities of life.

As far as characterization goes, Candice's parents are no better. Her father can't let go of his grudge against Brian, and her mother is too depressed to do much of anything except wallow in her emotions. At one point, when Candice tries to convince her that sitting around being sad won't do anything, she throws a tea kettle at her daughter. Okay, really? The worst thing is, this situation isn't even mentioned again. You'd think her mother would realize the error of her ways after she had done that, but nope! The tea kettle incident is totally forgotten without consequence! And no, having depression doesn't excuse throwing a tea kettle at her daughter. The whole incident is completely inconsequential to the story anyway, so why put it in there if you're not even going to make use of it or let it have some kind of impact?

I also find it hard to believe that Candice's life is so hard. I know a lot of people have dysfunctional home lives, some even worse than Candice's, but to me, it felt like Jonsberg was trying to make Candice the biggest woobie possible. Basically a checklist of things to make her backstory seem angsty. Candice is an outcast and has no friends? Check. Her mother is depressed? Check. Double mastectomy? Check. Lost a daughter/sister due to SIDS? Check. Father can't let go of a grudge and isn't there a lot of the time? Check. What is all of this supposed to accomplish? The things Candice does to try and make her family happy won't work because issues like that have far more complexities behind them than she could possibly understand at her age. The fact that the characters are woefully bland and uninteresting really doesn't make me feel for them, and having all of these problems thrown into one story for heaping doses of angst and yank the sympathy out of the readers isn't exactly working. Granted, I have trouble with this as well, but at least when I try to tackle stuff like this, I try to make it mean something or have an impact on the story, and not just throw it in there for the sake of playing drama bingo or extra woobie points. If you want drama, fine! Do drama, but have it make sense and add something to the story and characters, and if neither are good in any way, then the drama falls completely flat.

The story itself moves at a snail's pace despite the book being short, and considering that the story is told from Candice's point of view, that's not exactly a good sign. There are these subplots that go nowhere, such as Candice acting like her fish is having an identity crisis and being friends with Douglas. Basically, the story is bogged down by too many flaws to justify the few good qualities that it has. A good chunk of it could have been either revised or cut out completely and nothing would be lost. I do feel kinda bad for ripping this book apart, though. It does have interesting ideas and a lot that I would normally like, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired for me.

Not exactly the best book in the world. If you can't handle huge suspensions of disbelief, give it a miss. Personally, if you want a good book with main characters who have autism, I'd recommend The Real Boy by Anne Ursu or Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin. Or if you like manga, just read With The Light. They're all far more worth your time.
 
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This review was written on February 25th, 2014.

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(Like with the Pokemon Special volumes, this is a series so I'll review each book individually and then the whole series once I'm done)

I give this adorable little romp...an 83/100.

Sometime early last month, I stumbled across a cute little anime called Tanoshii Moomin Ikka, or Fun Moomin Family. Out of curiosity, I decided to sit down and watch it to see what it was like since I was getting tired of watching too much Pokemon, Sword Art Online, and Pretty Cure. And wow, much to my surprise, it was ungodly adorable, but it's so much more! It's warm, charming, funny, sweet, and it's not cute in the overly saccharine I-want-to-gargle-cyanide kinda way! It's full of good characters and engaging storylines and fun adventures! But as of now I've only seen up to episode six of the 1990s series, so I can't entirely judge it yet. The series did, however, inspire me to buy one of the original books, the cover of which is pictured above. I read through it and find it to be quite cute!

The series starts off with young Moomintroll and his friend Sniff who hear about a comet that's said to plummet to Moominvalley and destroy everything. They go on their way to an observatory far away to see if the rumors are true. They run into various perils like raging waters, poisonous plants, and monsters. But they also meet new friends, like the philosophical vagabond Snufkin, a pair of Snork siblings, Snork the brother and Snork Maiden (or Floren in the anime. I'm gonna call her that in every review since it just sounds odd for an individual to be referred to by his or her species name and not an actual name) the sister. Once they confirm the rumors about the comet, they have to run back to Moominvalley and prepare for the potential apocalypse.

Since this is a children's book series, the writing is very simple. But it's not so simple that it aims to insult the reader's intelligence, only explaining things when needed, and is still varied enough to leave you visualizing the adventures Moomin and his friends have in your head. The illustrations, albeit a tad crude, are cute and give us a better picture of who the characters are, where they're going, and what's happening. I couldn't help but notice they looked a bit more cartoony and cross-hatchy, like cartoons from the forties. But then again, this book was written in the 1940s, around the time the Cold War was about to get a firm grip on the United States (In fact, many scholars claim this whole book is an allegory for nuclear war and the fear that gripped everyone like the Bubonic Plague!). The characters, despite falling into some minor stereotypes, are also very cute and unique. We have Moomin, the nice, friendly, and idealistic leader, the frightful and cowardly Sniff, the vain and somewhat prissy Floren, and the gentle voice of reason, Snufkin. There's also Moominmamma and Moominpappa, who may come off as idealized parents at first, but are actually a whole lot more than that. Some of the characters' reactions to certain situations really rang true to me, as I can see others reacting the way they do in similar circumstances in real life too. I want more of these characters!

My only problems with the book lie within the choices of words and overuse of parentheses to explain things. There's nothing wrong with explaining things when needed, just as long as they fit into the story. But the authoress has a tendency to use parentheses and throw explanations in them a bit too much, even during some pivotal moments in this book when they would have been better as footnotes, slightly killing the tension and stopping the flow of the story for a while. I also found some odd word choices in some places. In one chapter, Moomin is told of the Snorks, and he suddenly refers to them as wretched, even though when he actually meets the Snorks he's nice to them. Why would he call them wretched when he's never even met them before and if he doesn't even hate them? Is this a translation error or an odd choice of words? Also, they call a harmonica a mouth-organ in this, which is also kind of odd, but that's about it.

It's cute, sweet, engaging, funny, and when the stakes get serious, boy, do they ever!
 
This review was written on May 27th, 2014. More Sailor Moon reviews!

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I give what's considered the best Sailor Moon season...a 74/100!

I've just finished the third season of Sailor Moon S (and will watch the rest of SuperS starting tomorrow, as I'm a good chunk of the way through that), and it's generally considered the best season. And...I have to agree with them. The stakes are definitely much higher than both the first and second season, and it definitely improves on the second season A LOT. I may not be the biggest fan of Sailor Moon, but S definitely improves on problems the previous seasons were riddled with, even though it still has a lot of problems.

One of Usagi's friends, Rei, has strange dreams about the world and everyone in it getting destroyed by a great evil. Later on, they find that an organization called the Death Busters, led by a professor named Souichi Tomoe and his gang, the Witches 5, are ripping jewels from people called pure hearts in order to awaken the Messiah of Silence, and the pure hearts they need have talismans which can bring about the Holy Grail, which can revive their Messiah. The girls meet two new sailor soldiers, Haruka Tenou, Sailor Uranus, and Michiru Kaioh, Sailor Neptune, who are very aloof and cynical, and feel no need to ally themselves with the idealistic sailor team. They're dead set on destroying the Death Busters, and feel the sailor team will be a nuisance. Later on, Chibiusa comes back from the future on a mission to make friends, and befriends one such girl named Hotaru. Can the sailor soldiers save the world?

One thing about Sailor Moon that often bothered me was the animation. It always felt stiff to me outside of the transformation sequences, and I never found it to be much to write home about. Much to my surprise, the creators seemed to hear me and improved on it a lot. There's a lot more movement both in and out of battle scenes, the facial expressions are more varied and polished, the characters don't look as stiff when they run or walk, the colors are more polished and vibrant, and some shots just look beautiful, like whenever Haruka and Michiru are together and there are pseudo-watercolor shots of them just looking pretty. Plus, there are a lot more added details during certain events, when in one very important scene near the end Usagi's hair looks really messy and about to come undone after a grueling battle to save someone. Another thing that's improved is the music. Some tracks from previous seasons are still kept, but new ones are added, and not only do they really do their job well in the scenes they're placed in, they're so dang catchy and stay in your head forever! You know background music is good if it keeps playing in your head for weeks! There's a lot of screeching and haunting violin pieces used in this season, namely during the dark and scary parts. But the music for when Usagi transforms is changed, and I personally liked the transformation music she had in R, not to say the one used here is bad. Just personal preference.

The characters...again, haven't changed much, except for Chibiusa. New characters are added like Sailor Uranus and Neptune and...I have to admit, I liked them at first, but as the series went on, I grew to dislike them. Not hate them, just dislike because near the end, they become increasingly rude and mean to Usagi. While their reasons being so are understandable, they could have at least tried to see things from her point of view and be happy with the eventual outcome of the event. Also, remember when I said I originally hated Usagi before? Now, I don't feel that way anymore. In fact, I feel sorry for her now, mostly because of all the crap she has to go through, both in and outside battle scenes. God, I especially hated episode 18 because of the way Chibiusa and everyone else behaved toward Usagi when she was just trying to help, and the whole thing started when she made a mistake that could have easily been avoided had Chibiusa told her that she was making a pie for someone in school! But no, she doesn't admit to her mistake, blames the whole thing on Usagi, and everyone just agrees with her without thinking about what happened in a different perspective! NOW I get why people hate Chibiusa so much. But no, I still don't hate her. I've seen worse characters. Plus, the villains had varying amounts of focus. I liked some of the main villains, but I wasn't too fond of one girl Mimete. Her voice is annoying, and she got way more screen time than the more interesting members of the Death Busters. But I will give the creators credit for giving her a relatively decent personality, and making her more than just a out-and-out villain. However, in my opinion, the best character in this whole season is Hotaru. Without going into spoilers, she is the best character, and she drives the entire season.

Sailor Moon S, while still riddled with the most obvious problems that the other seasons have, is a major improvement, and I recommend it quite highly.
 
This review was finished a few days ago and...uuuugh, I am so glad I'm done with this show.

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I give this fourth season of one of my favorite mobage anime...a 58/100.

I've already gone on at length about Show By Rock is one of my favorite guilty pleasure anime even with its flaws, so I won't belabor the point here. Season 1 was fine, though nothing special, season 2 I feel is a massive improvement, season 3, Mashumairesh, was the weakest season IMHO and made no effort to reach any highs, and season 4...is kind of in the middle. Basically, Show By Rock Stars takes place right after where season 3 left off, having the Mashumairesh girls be invited to Midi City by Banded Rocking Records to join them, and showing them interacting with the other bands, along with a new villain threatening to mess up the big festival everyone is preparing for. That premise, while cliche, is fine on its own, and Stars could have done a lot with it. Unfortunately, having seen Stars now...SBR really deserved better, and I think a lot of this season's flaws come from the change in production companies, from Bones to Kinema Citrus. Stars does reference the first two seasons a lot, making sure to keep the characters in character, replicate the setting, and throw in a lot of details that are sure to make hardcore SBR fans happy. However, I think in the process of the change, nobody from Bones told the Kinema Citrus staff about previous plot threads that had been established at the end of season 2.

One particular plot hole Stars has is...well, Cyan's presence. Specifically, how the hell did she manage to get back to Sound World after being sent back to the human world at the end of season two?! Stars provides absolutely no explanation for this! Did the Kinema Citrus staff just forget that Cyan is a human from Earth?! You can't just throw a character back into a fantasy world without a solid explanation as to how she even got back there in the first place! But this is only one example of the continuity issues that are plaguing this season. Remember in the second season how Ogasawara manipulated Uwasanopetals to come with him to the Unicorn Virtual Music building, setting up a potential plot thread? Not only does Stars completely ignore this, one stinger at the end of episode 11 shows them back at their countryside town, continuing to whine about how they can't go to Midi City...Even though season 2 established them as having been able to go and, I don't know, LAND A FRIGGIN HUGE RECORD DEAL THAT COULD ENSURE THAT THEY COULD GO THERE!!! Oh, and do I even need to mention Ailane suddenly going evil in this season for no reason at all, even though in the second season she was shown to have broken away from Dagger's control?

Of course, continuity issues aren't the only problem plaguing this season. For one, the characters don't really develop much here. A lot of the show is just the Mashumairesh girls interacting with the other bands. Granted, the exceptions to this rule are Delmin, whose backstory gets explored in more depth, and ironically enough, Dokonjofinger, who I absolutely hate, and yet this season actually manages to make them somewhat more tolerable. Granted, they're still cliche and a knock-off of the much better Shingancrimsonz, but I do appreciate that Stars made an effort to flesh them out a little bit, even if it still doesn't make them anything more than bland as white toast. On the other hand, other characters who really could have benefited from having their backstories fleshed out, like Himeko, are still given the shaft, and a lot of the show spends its time on comedic band shenanigans that are completely unnecessary. Say what you will about the first two seasons of Show By Rock, but at least they knew to balance out the comedy with its more serious moments, knowing to use the former as either levity after a particularly grueling moment, or actually flesh out the characters more. Stars' comedy is just...not funny, and the fact that it prefers doing that over fleshing out its characters is one of its biggest detriments as a season. Oh, and the finale is easily the worst SBR has ever had, with a God-awful, piss-poor backstory for this season's villain that really has to be seen to be believed. You really have to TRY to be that bad.

For what it's worth though, the animation and the music are still good, even if the songs in this season aren't as good as the ones in previous SBR seasons. I'll give Kinema Citrus credit for not only keeping the character designs in tact (Save for one of the Uwasanopetals girls, though that's insignificant here), but the setting and the overall look of the show, so kudos to them for that. But seriously, couldn't the writers for the previous seasons have left notes for the Kinema Citrus staff letting them know about those important plot threads that I mentioned above? Consistency shouldn't be this hard, people! Ah, well. Show By Rock Stars tried, but in my opinion, it didn't reach the highs that seasons one and two did, squandering continuity in favor of unfunny comedy. Maybe SBR will get a fifth season down the line, but at this point, I'm not sure, though I'd be happy to watch more SBR should more get made. If only the SBR mobile games came to the US, though. Someone once said online that they feel Show By Rock works better as a comedic slice-of-life anime than a fantastical epic about saving the world from an evil entity, as they feel the former premise does more to make you care about the characters. I don't feel that's true in the case of SBR, because both Stars and Mashumairesh rehash common comedic cliches just for the sake of it, rather than trying something new with them or even using them as a means to flesh out their characters. A more urgent save-the-world plotline, as cliche as it can be at times, works better with this because it forces the characters to grow as people in their journey to ensure that their world and everyone in it is safe. Because Stars preferred to be more of an epic comedic crossover, it ultimately still comes off as a shallow imitation of the first two seasons rather than trying to stand on its own two feet.

So yeah, you're not missing anything by not watching Show By Rock Stars. Even as a big SBR fan, this season fell short of expectations, so don't go into this expecting anything grand.
 
This review was written on April 22nd, 2021.

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I give this epic shoujo manga that revolutionized an entire genre...a 93/100!

In the year 1971, shoujo manga was beginning to get popular, with many new mangaka, many of them being women, changing the comic industry in Japan by writing stories aimed at women. The tides were turning swiftly, but none more so than the debut of Riyoko Ikeda's masterpiece, The Rose of Versailles. With its lush artwork, sweeping storyline spanning several decades, telling the rise and fall of French queen Marie Antoinette in the years before the French Revolution, accompanied by a strong, charismatic, fearless but still human female lead in Oscar, Rose of Versailles exploded in popularity all across the world, with many hailing it as one of the absolute best manga ever made. It has been constantly referenced, parodied, and used as inspiration for many other anime and manga since (Revolutionary Girl Utena is one notable example of this) because of its willingness to not only push the boundaries of shoujo manga aimed at girls, and for proving that shoujo manga that tell more serious, action-oriented stories can be good. To this day, Rose of Versailles is still hailed as a classic.

Oddly enough, even though it's very popular across the world, the manga itself didn't get released in North America until 2020, almost fifty years after its first publication. The first two volumes of the manga did get translated, but only because someone used them solely for the purposes for teaching English to Japanese readers. Even the anime had trouble getting brought over to the US. One reason that the manga didn't get published in the US at first was that according to one article, it was surmised that Ikeda wouldn't allow publishers to license it unless they paid the licensing fee that she specifically asked for, which was said to be so exorbitant that no American manga publisher could ever hope to afford it. Licensing manga for American release isn't exactly a get-rich-quick scheme, and don't let those long-running shounen manga fool you into believing so. This would eventually get rectified for both the anime and manga, with the former being released on DVD by Nozomi Entertainment in 2013, before falling out of print and now with a newly released Blu-Ray set from Discotek Media. Against all the odds, Udon Entertainment managed to license the Rose of Versailles manga in 2015, with intent to translate and release the entire series, including the side-stories, in large, hardback omnibus collections as a means of putting it out quicker. The first volume was originally going to be released in 2016, but due to the scale of the project and the gravity of just how important it is to the manga world as a whole, along with wanting to give it the most polished, faithful, authentic translation possible, it was delayed for years until it finally came out in 2020, along with COVID-related delays for later volumes after that. The fact that Rose of Versailles is getting a complete English release at all is a HUGE deal to anime/manga connoisseurs, and considering the industry has had plenty of miracles in the past few years (Legend of Galactic Heroes getting released in the US, a small movie licensor managing to get US blu-ray publishing rights for Neon Genesis Evangelion—which is also considered exorbitantly expensive to license, Gunbuster getting an English dub after years of not having one, and other classic anime and manga getting the same treatment), this proves that even the impossible can be possible.

So enough of that history lesson. What's the story actually about? The manga tells the tale of infamous French queen Marie Antoinette, her rise to power, and eventual fall from grace leading up to the French Revolution. It also follows the exploits of one Oscar Francois de Jarjayes, commander of Marie Antoinette's royal guard. Oscar's father has wanted a son for so long, but despite his best efforts, his wife has only provided him daughters, so he decides to raise his youngest baby as a boy, even though Oscar is female. The story explores how Marie Antoinette's decisions negatively affected France, Oscar seeing how France is governed, along with the plight of the poor, and all the important events that lead to the French Revolution, with a few fictitious elements sprinkled in for good measure.

Really, what's there to be said about the manga's artwork that hasn't been said already? All the characters have distinct designs, the page layout is outstanding, backgrounds, costumes, and set pieces are lavishly detailed, and from a non-artwork standpoint, it's made very clear that she did her homework in regards to making sure the overall setting and history is as accurate as humanly possible, even with certain characters either being completely fictional, highly fictionalized versions of other people, or did things differently than their real life counterparts. My only real complaint about it is that some characters can be hard to distinguish from one another, as many of them have the same 18th century hairstyle that was common during that time period, but that's more of a nitpick than anything. But I do have to critique parts of the English translation, as there are several instances where the characters use "must needs" for some reason, like "You must needs change clothes." This to me makes no grammatical sense, and it would have flowed better if the translator had written it as either "You need to change clothes" or "You must change clothes." This weird sentence structure is used other times in the manga as well, and it just feels very jarring to me, especially when you take into account that Udon poured over translating it over the course of years, from when they first announced the license to actually putting the volumes out.

Of course, a series like this absolutely lives or dies on its characters, and I think on that front, the manga succeeds spectacularly. Every single character, from the main ensemble to minor characters who don't exactly get a whole lot of page time, advance the story in their own ways, and even when they're not on screen, you can bet the manga isn't going to let them sit around doing nothing until they get focus again, as they all have their own agendas they carry out behind the scenes. Plus, while most series only cover a few years at most, Rose of Versailles' whole story takes place over a period of 24 years, and in that time, you really get to see them grow and change, some for the better, and some for the worst. Plus, you have to give the series kudos for making a good character out of Marie Antoinette, succeeding in making her sympathetic while still retaining her as the wildly naive, careless, irresponsible queen that she was. And then you have Oscar, who...what's there to say about Oscar that hasn't been said already? There's a reason why she's considered one of the best shoujo protagonists of all time, if not THE best one. She's strong, independent, charismatic, doesn't take crap from anyone, but still has plenty of flaws, like being overly prideful, and is allowed to be emotional and vulnerable when the time calls for it. People nowadays believe that the only way women can be truly strong is if they're nothing but stoic, emotionless beings, and that having them be vulnerable will make them come across as spineless and weak, but that's not true. People forget that characters need to be interesting in order to be truly likeable, and that involves showing how they deal with their flaws. Even many anime characters in anime nowadays are so focused on either being completely flawless, overpowered, or outright jackasses who get everything handed to them on a silver platter, that they come across as boring or too perfect to be invested in. Flawed characters are interesting when you show them dealing with their flaws, people!

The characters aren't the only ones with top notch development. Ikeda really worked hard to make the setting and the story feel alive, and the story itself really evolves over the course of its run. At first it seems like it'll be old school shoujo fare, complete with nobles, frilly dresses, sparkles, romance, and cheesy court politics (Seriously, I found Du Barry's whole motive to be really shallow), but once the French Revolution comes closer, the series gradually gets darker and darker. From that point on, you can't really call it a shoujo anymore, and it transcends genres. As far as overall flaws go, they're pretty negligible, but I can name a few. For one, the series doesn't always make transitions from one scene to another very clear. Most manga have things that indicate the changing of a scene or the passage of time, like bars that change size, or stylized borders, and so on, and Rose of Versailles doesn't have those. With the way most pages are set up, it looks like several scenes are playing out on the page at once, and it's often hard to tell if time has passed or not. Also, some of the cartoony expressions and humor can feel out of place at times, though unlike, say, Yona of the Dawn, they're not so pervasive that they pop up every single time there's a serious moment. There are also a few side stories that, while fun as their own entities, don't really feel like they fit into the narrative of Rose of Versailles because of how tonally dissonant they feel in terms of their mood and genres, namely the Countess In Black story at the end of volume 4. That one was just...weird, and it felt like it should have been its own separate story because of the supernatural and even sci-fi elements involved. I mean, RoV is a shoujo historical fiction story, so it's pretty jarring to have a side story where one of the characters is basically a bona fide robot made to look like a human being even though that kind of technology couldn't have existed in the late 18th century.

That being said, those things are negligible compared to how great the rest of the series is. Having seen the entire anime and now having read the entire manga, and owning it, I can wholeheartedly say that Rose of Versailles has absolutely earned its place in the anime/manga pantheon. There's really no other manga like it, and I can only imagine what the industry would be like had it not made the splash that it did. So don't think the seventies was full of badly animated fodder meant to sell toys or fill up empty space on TV channels. Do yourself a favor and read Rose of Versailles. It's not considered one of the greatest shoujo manga of all time for nothing...if you can manage to track down the English volumes, that is. Yeah, even though the series is fully out now, it's starting to fall out of print because of COVID causing delays in production, and Udon hasn't been able to make enough stock despite the manga being so recent. Even Right Stuf is running out of stock. I'm lucky to have managed to get all five volumes when I did, but if you can find it, definitely check it out if you can!
 
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I give this moving, beautifully animated mini web anime...a 92/100!

So...I basically had no idea this anime even existed until I randomly stumbled across it on a website where I often downloaded anime. I looked up info about it and decided to watch the first episode on a whim...and boy, am I glad I did! Seriously, what the hell is this anime?! Where did it come from?! And why is it so friggin' amazing?! Yoru no Kuni, meant to be some kind of animated promotional vehicle for the singer Aimer's newest album, directed by some dude named Ryo-timo (real name Ryosuke Sawa, who worked on shows like Noein and Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad), completely took me and a lot of other people by surprise. I, and many others, thought this would be 11-13 episodes at most, though the episodes came out at a rather slow pace, but that was okay with us. Buuuuut then the announcement came that Yoru no Kuni was only going to have three episodes. Seriously, what the fuck?! This anime deserves way more than just three episodes!! Who the hell decided that was a good idea?! In case you couldn't tell, I'm pissed off because this, to me, is a very strong contender for one of the absolute best anime that ever came out in 2021.

But enough bitching about this anime's short episode length, what's Yoru no Kuni even about? Well, in this anime, a mysterious avian being called Yoru inhabits the world of the night, and sometimes people get magically transported into his world while sleeping (Or Yoru goes into their dreams. The anime isn't very clear about it, and I think it's intentionally left to open to interpretation), and Yoru's job is to gently help them come to terms with whatever problem they're dealing with. It's basically like Infinity Train (The Cartoon Network show, not the Demon Slayer movie) in that the characters of the day have a problem, get transported to Yoru's dominion, and have to learn to come to terms with their problem, sometimes with Yoru's help, sometimes not. The story isn't very linear, but more episodic in nature, and each episode focuses on a different character, namely a little girl dealing with the loss of her pet, a middle schooler coping with jealousy over her friend wanting to expand their friend circle, and an adult woman who can't seem to hold down a job and is insecure about how her life will turn out.

Of course, the obvious thing that stands out about this anime is...well, the animation. There's this almost painting-like style to it, with crayon-esque shooting stars, picturesque watercolor hillsides, luminous butterflies, swirly trees, and so on. Not only is everything lusciously animated, from character movement to the dazzling spectacles on display when the characters of the day come to terms with their problems, everything has its own unique texture, and not once does the world feel sterile or like a cardboard cut-out. Yoru no Kuni is a series about dreams, and I think in that aspect, it succeeds in creating a perfect, dream-like atmosphere, and the bright visuals don't so much dazzle you as they do careess your eyes with its storybook-like animation. The music is pretty good here as well. There isn't a lot of it, contributing to the series' emphasis on ambience and atmosphere, and the insert songs are all well-timed, well-sung, and are always saved for just the right moment, allowing for stronger impact and emotional catharsis when the characters resolve their issues.

Being a shorter web series, Yoru no Kuni goes for a character-of-the-day approach, where every episode focuses on a different singular person, with the only main character among them being Yoru. While the human characters aren't exactly the most three-dimensional or layered, they feel realistic, and their problems are down-to-earth, relatable, and true to life, even within the context of the fantastical setting. Even Yoru, who we know the least about throughout the entire series, is likeable, as he's basically some kind of magical monster therapist who gives advice and helps when his charges ask, but never patronizes them and gently nudges them towards their resolution without being forceful or overbearing. He's simply there if they need him, and he helps them when they ask for it, acting as a sort of guide for them. The anime doesn't try to answer any questions about him, and there is a lot we don't know about Yoru. What is he? Where does he come from? What's his overall purpose? Why does he help these people? What does he even gain from helping them? Is he a cog in a machine, a part of something bigger, or does he help people because he wants to? Is it even out of genuine kindness or due to some ulterior motive?

The series, being relatively episodic, doesn't have much in the way of a grand narrative. It's just an avian monster helping people with their issues. It really says something when any flaws it has don't really have anything to do with its overall quality. I want to know more about Yoru, the people he helps, and his world, and three episodes isn't anywhere near enough to tell this kind of story. Again, the fact that it's so short is its biggest drawback. I don't know whether it's short length is due to it being cancelled, budget constraints, if Ryo-timo was made to cancel it or if he wanted to leave it this way, other stuff behind the scenes, or maybe it wasn't popular enough. Who knows at this point? Neither Ryo-timo nor Aimer have mentioned anything about the reasons behind its short length, and I'm admittedly still pissed about it, but whatever the case, I'm glad we got Yoru no Kuni at all. In only three episodes it's able to do what most anime that have twice as many, maybe even more, are unable to. All of its characters are compelling, the animation is striking, the story that we have is really nice, and it's just a good, wholesome time killer you can use to waste half an hour if you feel like it. This kind of concept has so much potential for exploration and other ideas, and it's a shame it ended its run so soon, as I feel like more could be done with Yoru no Kuni. Then again, that's what fan fics are for!

For what it is, though, Yoru no Kuni is a damn good piece of fine art that deserves way more appreciation than it gets. Please, do yourself a favor and watch Yoru no Kuni if you can. It's an absolute feast for the eyes and the heart.
 
Now this is an old review, from June 20th, 2013, about an underrated anime that I feel deserves more love than it gets. I did tweak some parts of it a bit to make it more grammatically cohesive and to cut out some filler.

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(Sorry for the bad picture quality. There are literally no good promo pics for this particular adaptation)

I give this VERY loose adaptation of Hector Malot's novel...a 94/100!

In the late eighties, the World Masterpiece Theater was starting to fall into a bind that it couldn't get itself out of. Apparently for some unknown reason, they were at war with Fuji TV regarding broadcasting their shows. Soon, their budgets fell and the episodes their series had shrunk more and more. They started trying new things to try and get an audience, like adapting a fantasy novel (Peter Pan), sequels to earlier installments (Little Women), an anime set in Africa (Bush Baby), a rehash of Dog of Flanders (Famous Dog Lassie), and something action packed (Romeo's Blue Skies). This adaptation, Homeless Girl Remy (I know it's commonly known as Nobody's Girl Remi but I'm referring to it as the former because that's how Takara Fansubs translated it to differentiate it from the boy version). With this final installment, however, WMT really started going crazy with trying to get their audience back. Their adaptations are usually very faithful to the source material. Trust me, I've seen plenty of WMT to know that they sure do adapt everything faithfully, even down to the dialogue. This one, however...is anything but faithful. Because of only being given 26 episodes, the producers knew that they couldn't fit a 50 episode plot into it unlike Osamu Dezaki's version, so to differentiate it and at least try to make it into its own entity...they changed Remi into a girl (and spelled her name as Remy), deleted a bunch of stuff from the book, and took one small part of the book (Remi staying with Garofoli, who in this version is named Gaspard) and completely made it into the central focus, as all the other stuff wouldn't be able to fit into a 26 episode anime. Unfortunately, Japan didn't take this too well. Ratings were low, the show got bad reviews, the final episodes didn't get broadcast, and because of all that, WMT went on an official hiatus for 10 whole years until they tried to get back on their feet with Les Miserables, Porphy's Long Journey, and Konnichiwa Anne. But after that, they went back into hiding and it's unlikely they'll ever come back. Thankfully, I have not seen a lot of backlash against this show, and I think I'm better off for it. Now, we Americans tend to hate any adaptation of any of someone's original product, especially if it doesn't have anything that we like about said source material. The Last Airbender got scathing reviews simply because it was nothing like the original show. But these are mostly just movies. What about TV shows? Now, I ask this: just because something isn't entirely faithful to the original source material, does it really mean that it's absolutely horrible? Does that automatically mean that something has absolutely no redeeming qualities and is nothing but trash meant to be erased into oblivion? For this show: that answer is an absolute big fat NO.

Okay, yes, the 1977 version made by Dezaki is universally considered by fans to be better than this version, the 1997 version. However! That certainly doesn't mean that the 1997 version doesn't have anything that's good about it or that it isn't a good show in its own right. In fact, I happen to like them both on the same level, but for very different reasons. I really love Homeless Girl Remy for what it is as its own entity, and I think other people should too, if they just look past the source material and the back story behind this production. So, what's the premise? A girl named Remy lives happily in her small village with her mother and younger sister. But her father comes back in a rage after losing his job, and he reveals that Remy was actually adopted. As if this wasn't enough, said adoptive father is tired of having Remy around and wants to sell her off for easy money. Thankfully, a traveling performer named Vitalis takes her in and they go around France as a makeshift troupe, performing shows for all to see.

For one thing, the animation for this version may be considered low budget compared to the 1977 version, and yeah, low budget is right as some of the later episodes start to look just a BIT funny-looking. But the rest of the show, while it does have the whole nineties look about it, still looks great. The character designs aren't overly anime-esque, the backgrounds are rich and detailed, little things are animated nicely, there are some still frames present but they don't hurt the final product, and the characters' movements are fluid and down-to-earth. Plus, because the colors are a bit muted and soft, it's very easy on the eyes. I seem to like old school cel drawn animation better than digital animation, as it's easier on my eyes, though a lot of my favorite shows are colored digitally, so I could probably be biased here. I'm not a discriminatory animation lover, though! Check my top 3 to see how varied my animation preferences are! Taking all of this into account, when compared to other shows of its time, the animation is still relatively nice and well done, so I wouldn't consider it bad or entirely low budget. The creators needed to make do with what they got, and they definitely did, in my opinion.

Now, time to talk about what I feel is the BEST part of the show: the soundtrack. Now, if you've read my review of the 1977 version (On my LJ, and it's admittedly pretty bad), you'll have read that I considered that version's music to be very passe and outdated. Yes, I still hold this opinion to be true, especially now that I've finally gotten to finish this version. And wow, the soundtrack for this version is about a thousand times better than the first one! For one thing, the opening and ending themes are absolutely wonderful! They're both very soft, melodic tunes sung by soft voiced singers, with great lyrics pertaining to love, being yourself, and enduring hardship, and they both fit the show to a T. While I did like the opening of the 1977 version, I felt the song was a bit too upbeat, and the ending was even more so, but to a worse and extremely jarring degree. Homeless Girl Remy's themes are great, soft, warm, fitting, and they match the tone of the show while striking a good balance between dark and upbeat. I love soft songs with singers that have soft voices, so I could be biased here. The background music is another thing that needs to be praised, because unlike other shows where they tend to put the wrong kinds of music in the wrong places, killing tension or ruining poignant scenes (Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, anyone?), Remy's soundtrack fits the entire show nicely. It's full of nice, classical pieces that know when to be subtle and when to be full of suspense and tension, really bringing out the atmosphere and emotions of their assigned scenes. It's meant to tug at your heart strings, and it definitely tugged at mine when those moments came, making what I feel are great moments in not just this show, but in anime in general. If a soundtrack isn't used to its full potential and in context, then it could very well feel cheesy and out of place, ruining the show. Thankfully, Remy's soundtrack didn't fall into this pitfall.

The characters are the subject to quite a bit of debate in the WMT fandom, as they were subjected to the most drastic changes. Whether it's for better or worse varies with each character and with someone's opinion, and WMT anime are known for having very strong, nuanced, three-dimensional, and well developed characters in every single one of their anime, even during times when kids anime were expected to have simple characters who only have one trait and don't do much other than to entertain kids and preach a bunch of morals, especially in America, which is happily changing in this day and age (especially moreso with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic), albeit slowly. However, while I do adore the characters in this version, I do feel that compared to all the other WMT adaptations, these characters are a little bit weak and underdeveloped. One of the worst offenders is Gaspard, the villain in the second half of the show. He's really not much more than a walking villain cliche. He's gruff, he's mean, he's pathetic, he's cruel to everyone he meets, especially the kids he enslaves, all he wants is money money money, and he'll go to whatever means necessary to get it and use it for his own purposes. If kids don't do anything for him or do anything he hates, which is basically everything, he whips them and takes great pleasure in doing so. A lot of the villains in this show are card board cut outs meant to make the good characters look good. I can understand why this is so, however, and while I don't fault the creators for the circumstances that led to the WMT's downfall, that's still no excuse to make a bunch of walking cliche villains who are basically just like every one villainous anime character out there, just not with superpowers or intent to destroy the world, even with a very rushed plot that they had to deal with. The good characters are also subjected to lack of development (Vitalis is the biggest victim of this), but it's not bad in any way. Remy may have been changed into a girl, but she's still a very strong and good character who can carry the weight of the show very well, though she isn't the only one, even though her being compassionate from the beginning has very limited her development, and instead, other characters develop because of her, which in itself isn't a bad thing, but if it gets used a bit much, then characters won't be able to feel like individuals who can stand on their two feet. Though, with this in mind, try being those slaves under Gaspard's grubby hand. At least this is justified.

While I do praise the creators for at least trying to make do with what they were given considering the inevitable circumstances, there are still some jarring flaws. One of them appears at the end of the show, but it's not too spoiler filled so I'll go with it: one minute Gaspard loses sight of Remy, then when it looks like she escaped and outran him, he somehow manages to catch up to her with absolutely no explanation whatsoever! How was that even possible?! Plus, it does seem to want drama a little TOO badly, because you'll know right away when something bad happens to Remy in any form, and you'll be able to predict more from a mile away. Even with 26 episodes, there's still a tiny bit of filler, and considering the circumstances, the show came out very rushed as a result, leaving a bit of a cheesy and rushed ending, but I liked it for what it was, and I've seen worse endings so I'll let it slide. Plus, there's a good lesson in that no matter how hard things are, you have to keep moving forward and everything you've gone through will bring about a positive outcome in the end. Not only that, it also provides some very heartwarming and refreshing romance in a sea of cliche shoujo anime/manga. What I especially liked about this was that in terms of some things happening, characters actually talk about their feelings and problems instead of bottling them in, which is an oh so common pitfall for most anime and manga nowadays. Wanna know the best thing? NO NARRATOR! I don't remember being annoyed by the narrator in the 1977 version, but he talks and reveals important secrets in EVERY SINGLE episode, so I can see that being very annoying for many people, as some of what he says is really unnecessary. The 1997 version doesn't have a narrator, thank God. Plus, even with the show's warm and idealistic nature, the dark, cold fist of reality crashes down on the characters, and nobody is spared. I think children's shows need more dark and scary moments instead of trying to hide them out of fear of parents complaining. I don't see the point of hiding the fact that bad things can and will happen to anyone. This is why I like Japan's shows, because they don't dumb down their subject matter and they take their animation very seriously, their kids shows included (most of the time). I think scary and sad moments in children's shows/movies are good once in a while because those will actually teach them to be good and kind, and...really, bad things can, will, and do happen to people in real life anyway, so why not show them in advance so they'll learn how to deal with it that doesn't involve drugs, alcohol, or anything of the sort?

People, don't revile this show simply because it's not the source material or because it's not perfect. That's not a good attitude to have. I love the 1977 version, but I love the 1997 version just as much for what it is as its own entity. If one can just look past all the flaws and acknowledge what it DOES do well and right, then you'll be treated to a great, heart-tugging, heartwarming, nice little shoujo anime. Sure, it's not the best anime in the world, and not the most polished adaptation, but so what? It did its best and knew what it wanted to be. I know this show will have a place in my heart, and if it ever gets dubbed in English (which is likely never unless some brave and bold person steps up to the challenge), I'd absolutely LOVE to show this to my family, friends, and even my future kids one day!
 
I just finished watching this today, and I think this is the quickest review I ever banged out...but man, is this anime bad!

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I give this anime about girls who do literally nothing...a 45/100.

The subgenre of anime "Cute Girls Doing Cute Things" has gotten a bit of a bad reputation over the years...and some of it is for good reason. Most anime companies see it as an excuse to market moe girls who act younger and dumber than regular high schoolers do. While anime has always been a tool used for advertising at some point, there are just as many anime that prove you don't have to be soulless in doing so. Unfortunately, Aiura is one of the worst CGDCT anime I've ever seen. It's literally about three girls—Ayuko, Kanaka, and Saki—who just go to school, hang out, have pointless, cringey conversations that devolve into weird nonsense, and make Kanaka into the butt of their jokes. That's it. There is literally nothing to this anime at all.

None of the characters are memorable or likeable in any way whatsoever. They're all a bunch of one-note stereotypes who are as bland as wheat toast. Ayuko is the short girl who gets mistaken for a grade schooler, Kanaka is the peppy cheerful dumbass who's always the butt monkey, Saki is the straight man, and...oh lord, that one teacher Wakatsuki...don't even get me started on her. Her whole purpose is to be a cutesy moe shortstack who has a higher pitched voice than her students and mistake the (very reasonable and mature!) male teacher for being a pervert based on an absolutely baseless assumption. God, I wanted to smack Wakatsuki so hard in the face. Worst character in the entire show. Seriously, I can name several other CGDCT anime that have much more effort put into their characters than Aiura does.

Honestly, the show's only real saving graces are the lusciously detailed and fluid animation and the fact that every episode is two minutes long. I mean, the background art is colorful and bright, very easy on the eyes, and the actual motion is as smooth as butter...with the occasional obvious CGI, of course. It's kind of weird learning that Aiura was animated by LIDENFILMS, as their most recent project is the admittedly very ugly-looking Farewell My Dear Cramer. I mean, the difference in animation styles and the care put into them (or in Cramer's case, lack of care) is unbelievable. Plus, I'm glad every episode is only two minutes long, save for the opening and endings, which are both only 1 minute long. If this show had episodes that were half an hour long, it would have worn out its welcome long ago, though considering the show is pretty bad already, that's not saying much.

The soundtrack is...fine, for the most part. The background music and the ending theme are nice, but dear lord, that opening is so bad! Not only is it badly sung, it's basically a rip-off of a crap ton of other anime openings that are similar! Also, the actresses singing it are clearly straining when they try to sing really fast and high pitched, and the end result makes it sound like tin foil in a root canal. I mean, you have to TRY to be that bad. It actually hurts to listen to! Basically, Aiura is a bland, lazy, terrible slice-of-life moe girl anime that's best left forgotten. I can recommend several other slice-of-life anime that are way better, like Flying Witch, Place Further Than the Universe, Laid-Back Camp, and even Aoi Hana and Hitohira! Seriously, anything that's better than this piece of crap. Do yourself a favor and don't watch Aiura. The episodes may be short, but you'll want it back if you even think of watching this.
 
Julia just a quick note to say I always love reading your reviews even though I have not yet managed to enjoy any of the media being written about... until today! Your shining recommendation plus the achievably short length of half an hour to watch the whole lot propelled me towards Yoru no Kuni and omg was it just what I needed!! The art was eye-wateringly good, the stories on a small enough scale to make them universally relatable, and there was no preaching :bulbaLove: Thank you!!
 
Oh cool! Thanks! I'm so glad my review convinced you to watch Yoru no Kuni! And I agree, it's great!

Now for a new review which I just finished today.

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I give this anthology anime depicting almost all of Grimm's famous fairy tales...an 77/100!

(This review covers both seasons, not just the first one)

Fairy tales have always been a staple in our lives, whether because our parents read them to us, we learned about them in school, or saw the Disney movie versions. Everyone's probably heard of at least one fairy tale, like Snow White or The Little Mermaid. Even other countries have their own fairy tales, or their own original spins on familiar ones. But what many don't know is that often, the original sources are a lot darker and less kid-friendly than the interpretations we were exposed to. Such is the case of the fairy tales by the Brothers' Grimm, who are famous for having much darker and more cynical versions of popular fairy tales. Of course, in the eighties, Japan had the bright idea to adapt some of Grimms' fairy tales into an anime series, titled Grimm Masterpiece Theater in Japanese, retitled Grimms' Fairy Tale Classics in English. If you can believe it, this was one of the first anime that Saban Entertainment dubbed and brought to America back in their heyday. It even got aired on Nick Jr of all things. I was born in 1993, so I never saw it growing up, but I became friends with many people who did grow up with it. But because of Saban's tendency to never put stuff they license out on home video, or in some cases not completely, many episodes of this series were considered lost media until fairly recently. Thanks to Discotek Media not only finally re-releasing this series on Blu-Ray this year, but even released the Japanese version with English subs. Curious, I bought both sets and wanted to see what this was all about.

Now, Grimms' Fairy Tale Classics isn't your typical anime, following one set of characters in a singular narrative. Rather, each episode is a standalone retelling of different fairy tales, though there are some two-parters, and only one four-parter. You have common ones like Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Beauty and the Beast, but also some very obscure ones like The Coat of Many Colors, King Bluebeard, Godfather Death, The Water Nixie, and Brother and Sister. Basically, you can watch any episode of this anime and not feel like you skipped an episode, save for the two-parters and four-parter. Some things are changed from book to TV, such as leaving out certain characters for the sake of streamlining, while others are expanded upon, such as giving some characters names and well-defined personalities that they didn't have in the original source. One thing I did notice though, upon watching both the censored English dub and uncensored Japanese version, is that the latter names some characters in some others but most of the others don't have names, while the English dub goes out of its way to name every character possible whenever they're able (For example: Cinderella's pigeon friends have no names in Japanese, but in English they're named Algernon and Gwendolyn. In King Bluebeard, the main female character is named Josephine in English but has no name in Japanese).

Do be warned, though: If you plan on showing Grimms' Fairy Tale Classics to your kids, or plan on watching it yourself, don't expect it to be a cutesy, rosy affair like the various Disney movies, because not only is this series more faithful to their original sources, this means that they are dark. Granted, Saban censored a lot of the darker parts in the English dub, and there are some episodes that are equally sugary or comedic, such as Little Red Riding Hood or The Marriage of Mr. Fox, but many of them are not only dark in their atmosphere, but their themes as well. In the Japanese version, at least, when characters get cut, blood appears without censorship. Many fairy tales depicted show death, cruelty, questionable ethics, moral conflicts, and murder as huge themes, and several of them have genuinely scary imagery, like monsters being melted alive in graphic detail, or characters being injured, abused, or even murdered. One episode, The Coat of Many Colors, shows the main character, Aleia, experiencing what is basically PTSD after her mentally insane father tries to force her to marry him before accidentally killing himself. One episode even shows a naked preteen boy, complete with an uncensored penis. Yes, really. Of course, Japan has always had less restrictive standards on what's appropriate for kids shows compared to countries like America and Canada. But again, I always respect Japan's kids cartoons for going against the grain. It's what made me love anime in the first place, but some parts were a little much, such as, again, the brief instance of child nudity.

As far as the technical aspects go, Grimms' Fairy Tale Classics is...okay. The animation tends to fluctuate at times, with some episodes being very well animated and others...not so much. In one episode, The Frog Prince, the titular frog is chased around the dining room by a dog, and one frame shows a woman's hair flying wildly...and being frozen in place while the animals are chasing each other. I'm pretty sure hair, when blown upward, doesn't just stay in place in mid-air. It doesn't help that sometimes the character designs change in every episode, what with every episode being standalone retellings of different fairy tales. Some characters will look more realistic, while others are deliberately more cartoony with dot eyes and overexaggerated expressions. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as this makes each adaptation of each fairy tale stand out. But don't expect everything to look completely the same in every episode. I also find the music to be rather mixed as well. I mean, overall the soundtrack is fine, but often times it uses a weird variety of modern instruments, like electric guitar and synthesizers, making the more medieval-focused fairy tales feel weirdly anachronistic. It also doesn't always match the mood of a scene either. In one episode, Bearskin, weirdly comedic music plays right after a man's suicide attempt is interrupted.

You're not going to find much in the way of character development here as, again, every episode focuses on a different fairy tale, rather than one singular narrative with one set of characters. Honestly though, many of the adaptations go out of their way to expand on the original fairy tales, giving characters much more characterization than they did in their original sources. For example, in Snow White and Rose Red, the hunter, who is the bear's brother, doesn't do much in the original fairy tale other than get married to Rose Red, but here, he's given an actual personality and time to get to know Rose Red before they marry at the end. This is especially prevalent in Snow White, which is the only fairy tale to be given four whole episodes rather than one or two, and because of this, I think it's the best adaptation of Snow White. For one, the actual character of Snow White actually has a personality and is much more three-dimensional compared to, say, Disney's Snow White. I also found the dwarves to be pretty likeable as well, even if the show couldn't focus on all of them (Monday/Chick is my favorite out of them. He's best dwarf!). That being said, some decisions the creators made in giving certain characters certain types of personalities are rather suspect. For one, Leonora, the princess in The Frog Prince, is depicted as a whiny, spoiled brat who wants nothing to do with helping the prince-turned-frog, and when it seems like she almost kills him due to a temper tantrum, all she thinks about is what'll happen to her...and she somehow marries the prince and lives happily ever after with him despite having done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Seriously, I wanted to punch her every time she opened her mouth. Similarly, I have no sympathy for Rapunzel's biological parents because the whole thing started due to the mother throwing tantrums about wanting to eat magical cabbage like a petulant child, KNOWING those cabbages are cursed, and her husband is equally so for refusing to put his foot down, and then they both proceed to forget that their child was stolen and don't even bother looking for her ever. I also didn't like The Naughty Spirit, not because of its dark content, which I liked, but because I found its overall tone to be needlessly mean-spirited and two of the main characters to be unlikeable asshats who were more concerned about their own safety and constantly blaming the drummer boy for circumstances that they basically brought on themselves.

There were also times when I felt like the fairy tales being adapted could have benefitted from having an extra episode or two, like Snow White and Cinderella did. For example, I liked The Six Swans, but the amount of content it goes through, along with its rather brisk pacing, made it feel rather overstuffed, and it barely seemed to have time to breathe or flesh out its characters. This is mainly because the second season of the anime, called New Grimm Masterpiece Theater in Japanese, does away with two-parters and has every episode be a standalone. While this format does work for certain fairy tales, like Snow White and Rose Red and The Old Woman in the Woods, it does result in a lot of fairy tales that had more content feeling like they were just compressed and not being allowed time to really spread their wings. That being said, I don't want to end this review on a negative note. For this one, I'm going to list my top 10 favorite Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics episodes and my top 5 least favorite episodes.

Favorite Episodes:
1. The Coat of Many Colors
2. Snow White
3. Snow White and Rose Red
4. Hansel and Gretel
5. King Bluebeard
6. Beauty and the Beast
7. The Old Woman In The Woods
8. King Grizzlebeard
9. Red Riding Hood
10. Jorinde and Joringel

Least Favorite Episodes:
1. The Frog Prince
2. The Naughty Spirit
3. Rapunzel
4. Brother and Sister
5. The Golden Goose

I don't have as much of an attachment to this anime as others who grew up with it did, but after watching the series, I can totally see why people fell in love with it back when it first aired on Nick Jr back in the eighties. Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics doesn't try to dumb down the visions that the Brothers' Grimm had for their stories, or interpretations of other fairy tales (Saban's English dub did, though that was more due to strict broadcast regulations in the US back in the day), and often times expands on them when it has the chance. Definitely check it out if you're interested in an old treasure. Now that Discotek Media released the series on Blu-Ray for the first time ever, it's now widely available after being lost to time! If you want to keep this series alive, buy the Blu-Ray, and while you're at it, check out the special feature video on the second season's BR, as one of the producers at Discotek Media talks in detail about how they found the English masters for the series, which had pretty awful video quality, and painstakingly replicated Saban's edits to fit the English dub in order to present said dub in better video quality. One thing I found absolutely hilarious in that special feature is that when said producer talks about The Naughty Spirit, he explicitly uses the term isekai to describe the soldiers being whisked into Hell...which really makes me laugh in the best way possible. But yeah, Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics isn't perfect, but after being gone for so long, I think this series deserves to be seen and talked about again.
 
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I tried to review this on August 9th, 2020, but didn't finish writing it until today.

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I give this cute book about a little witch girl...a 70/100.

At this point in time, stories about young witches, sorcerers, and wizards are commonplace, obviously thanks to the Harry Potter book series. But before Harry Potter ever came around, other writers tried their hand at writing similar stories that weren't as popular until the former basically popularized it. One of them was The Worst Witch series by Jill Murphy, which just got a new Netflix series that's still ongoing (And I really need to get around to watching that). The first book for that came out in 1974, but there were plenty of books about good witches that came out even before that, one of them being the subject of today's review, Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett, published in 1953. I found it as I was searching for kids books about cute witches, and this one happened to come up. I rented it, liked it, and bought a physical copy of it, which is now sitting on one of my many shelves. I don't think it's as good as other children's books I've read, but I wouldn't call it bad either.

The story centers on a young girl, Minikin Snickasnee, aka Minx, the daughter of an evil witch named Madam Snickasnee. Said witch is cruel, mean, abusive, and hates kids so much that she regularly creates all sorts of spells and concoctions in her cauldron that she subjects kids to. Pretty much the image of a typical witch. She frequently berates Minx for not being a good enough witch, often denying her food and forbidding her to do anything, especially going to school. Tired of continually being mistreated and wishing for something more, Minx decides to make a bold move: Go to school when her mother is away. Although her presence raises quite a few eyebrows, she manages to make new friends and find some happiness outside her suffocating home. But when she finds out various children are disappearing, Minx decides to figure out what's going on...and maybe give her cruel mother her just desserts.

In case it wasn't blatantly obvious, Little Witch is very much aimed at young children, and as a result, has a very simplistic, beige writing style that leaves very little to the imagination, even when it uses slightly bigger words on occasions. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but the writing felt to me like it was trying really hard to appeal to five year olds. Everything is described very simply, there's no extra embellishments on anything, and while it's not engaging, it's still pretty easy to read. The characters are slightly better, but they're mostly just on the okay side. They don't have a lot of depth, and while some of them do get fleshed out, like Minx and her friend Frances, everyone else is pretty one-dimensional and bland. But that's not to say they're not likeable when they can be. I genuinely liked Minx as a character, her friendship with Frances and her great-grandmother were sweet, though Minx's witch mother was just a one-dimensional Saturday morning cartoon villain who did nothing other than abuse Minx and turn kids into flower pots.

On the whole, the story itself is nice. Nothing that'll bring the house down, but it's a sweet story you can read to your daughter/sister/niece before bed or something. One of the reasons I checked this book out is because one reviewer on GoodReads thought this was a sad, hopeless, joyless book, and really didn't like how the witch abused Minx. Understandable, and everyone has different tastes, but I personally don't feel the same way, and don't think that should be a reason to completely diss Little Witch as a whole. I mean, if she thinks Little Witch is overly angsty, she should check out Magical Girl Site. Yes, Minx does go through hardships, but the point of the story is that she overcomes them through meeting kind people, gaining confidence, and exposing her mother's misdeeds. If the writer really wanted the book to truly feel overly sad and hopeless, she wouldn't have given Minx a happy ending. I always appreciate books that don't try to sugarcoat reality or hide the fact that bad things can and do happen, but also show that there can also be kindness and hope if one is willing to go out and seek it out for themselves.

So Little Witch isn't exactly a groundbreaking story, but I find it to be a nice little time killer, and hey, maybe it can be somebody's first book if they're willing to give it a chance.
 
This review was written on March 18th, 2012.

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I give this wonderful little anime movie...a 93/100!

From the creators (both manga and anime) of the wonderful Natsume Yuujinchou come one of Midorikawa Yuki's earlier works, Hotarubi no Mori e (translated as To The Forest of Firefly Light), which has been made into a 45-minute movie recently. It was only just released, and many of you may think this is just a glorified episode of Natsume Yuujinchou, but by God, this thing is amazing, and I'm so glad I got to see it! To me, it's not nearly as good as Natsume Yuujinchou, but it definitely has a spot on my top 30 favorite anime!

The story's not much. It's about a little girl named Hotaru Takegawa who, one day at the age of six, gets lost in a forest as she goes to visit her uncle for the summer. She's found by a white haired boy named Gin, who is always wearing a mask and, according to him, he can never touch a human being. If he's touched by one, he'll disappear. But the two spend a lot of time together and become fond friends, seeing each other every year whenever Hotaru gets the chance to see her uncle for the summer. Yes yes, this has been done many times before, and sure it may not be the most original, but in my opinion, with the way this story was executed, I think it's done perfectly well, with a lot of heart.

Yes, if you can honestly believe it, like Natsume Yuujinchou, both the animation and music were done by Brain's Base and Makoto Yoshimori. The animation is as simple, beautiful, fluid, and top tier as ever, and there's nothing wrong with that. Considering this is another work by Yuki Midorikawa, the style is the same, with a few little changes here and there. The music...well, it's good, but unfortunately, it does have it's problems. This one particular music piece that had banjo strings playing kinda got played in the wrong scene or context, along with a few others. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the OST is bad. Heck, this is absolutely NOTHING like the atrocity that is the Durarara OST (don't hate me, Durarara fangirls!). It definitely sounds sweet like Natsume Yuujinchou's OST, but some pieces didn't quite fit. That's the only problem I had with the OST and the movie.

Unlike most movies, this anime doesn't have a very large cast, which is why I think the producers made it as short as it is (45 minutes. How were they able to show something of that length in a movie theater?!). But that doesn't mean that the characters aren't properly developed. The movie is very slow placed, and it allows us to both let the beautiful animation sink in, make us relax, and watch the characters grow and innocently interact with one another. The two lead characters are absolutely wonderful. Their chemistry is just perfect, and their interactions are nothing short of realistic and wonderful, even if it's not in the most realistic context. As the movie goes on, Hotaru grows up over time, and you really see how much she's changed since she was a kid. Gin is wonderful too, but why he's the way he is, I cannot spoil that. You need to watch the movie for yourself to learn about him.

Friendship can be a wonderful thing, and it knows no bounds. This is one of the anime's messages. If there's one thing Midorikawa does awesomely, it's tell a story. Nobody can say that she can't tell a story, because really, she's one of the few who actually can without the stories themselves getting all convoluted. Often times, anime don't know what they want to be, and wind up trying too hard (Kannagi), but this, along with Natsume Yuujinchou and a few other anime I've watched, kind of does it's own thing and runs with it, not caring about other things. Hotarubi no Mori e is a fairly simple story, and nothing more, which isn't a bad thing. Heck, I think simplicity wins over complicated anime any day. I wonder if this anime can be shown to kids? I didn't hear any curse words, and there isn't any violence, so maybe?

If you want to relax for 45 minutes, then watch this wonderful little movie. You won't regret it.
 
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Oh look! More short book reviews!

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The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James
Rating: 8.5/10
Yay, something good! I really liked this one. It's about a girl who is the only surviving member of a spaceship traveling to a new planet, and the crushing fear, loneliness, and yearning she experiences. I think the authoress really made good use out of the premise, really delving into Romy as a person, developing her, and fleshing her out, which is easy to do if you only focus on one character for a good majority of the book. I really liked Romy as a character. Although I think people might get bored with this book, as a good chunk of it is just Romy going about her day. I didn't mind it, but I did think the twist in the book did come across as a little too obvious considering what happens later. But I definitely recommend this to anyone who's looking for some low key sci-fi that's more character-driven than story-driven. Basically, it's 2001: A Space Odyssey without all the filler and unnecessary padding.

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Can You See Me? By Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott
Rating: 5.5/10
Whyyyyyy??? Again, I wanted to like this. I liked its message, I liked how it actually delved into what it means to be autistic, I like that it didn't try to force Tally, the main character, to change herself for others at the end, and I thought the writing is fine. But my main problem with it is that Tally as a main character reads less to me like an autistic person wanting to be understood and more like a selfish, entitled brat who throws actual tantrums when she doesn't get her way, which is sad to say! I can understand giving her flaws, but it felt to me like her flaws took precedence over any positive traits she might've had, and parts of the book felt more like after school pamphlets on how to deal with an autistic person rather than letting the story do it itself more organically. Characters need to have equal amounts of good traits and bad traits, and it felt like Tally had too much of the latter. Who the hell decides to watch Peppa Pig when they find out their father is in the friggin' hospital?! I didn't find any of the other characters to be that likeable either. And I feel bad saying all this because the person who wrote this book is autistic and the book itself is based on her own childhood. Sorry, Libby Scott. I wanted to like this, or maybe I'm in the wrong here for not liking it. Eh, I guess this just isn't for me.

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Story Thieves by James Riley
Rating: 3.5/10
Uuuugh. I hate it when a good idea is completely soiled by God awful execution and stupid characters. The concept was great, the villain's motivations are genuinely intriguing, and the writing was okay as well, but every single problem this book has can be traced to one thing: The main character, Owen. He is, without a doubt, the absolute worst thing about this novel. All he cares about is rewriting a certain event in his favorite book series, forces himself into Bethany's life without ever once respecting her boundaries, absolutely refuses to listen to her or follow directions, wants nothing more than to be a hero in the worst way possible, refuses to clean up all the messes he makes or face the consequences of his actions, and his desire for attention makes him lack any kind of self-awareness whatsoever. The book tries to make him into a flawed character who eventually learns his lesson, but in my opinion, it came way too little way too late for me, and often times, it seemed to bend over backwards just to make Owen come off as being in the right about most of his actions. Owen just read to me like an entitled brat who uses other people to get his way and pretends to be his favorite character for some kind of validation. Seriously, the book would be so much better if Owen had been cut out entirely. Ugh, don't even bother reading this one. It has a good premise but it's completely ruined by the awful Gary Stu that is Owen.

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The Sea in Winter by Christine Day
Rating: 8/10
This was cute. I liked it well enough. The prose was engaging and not too beige, the characters were interesting, the tidbits about Native American history were nice, and while the plot wasn't anything special, I liked it just fine. But it doesn't really try to be any different from other books about a girl trying to cope with a big change in her life and is kind of held back by its formula. Yeah, I really don't have much to say about this one, and I feel bad about this as this really is a nice little book.

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The Charming Life of Izzy Malone by Jenny Lundquist
Rating: 6.5/10
I really wanted to like this one. I really did. Books centered around outcasts who learn to accept themselves rather than be forced into a box are normally right up my alley. But this one was just cliche, and didn't seem to know what to do with itself, coming across as inconsistent at times. Sometimes, it seems like Izzy feels bad about getting herself into scrapes, but other times, especially in the beginning, she seems to have no remorse for her earlier actions and gets off on causing trouble. Plus, the entire book was woefully predictable, and I knew what the charm school really was the second I read more of the book. The writing feels like it's very intent on pandering to young kids, almost to a patronizing degree, morals are spoon fed to you with no end in sight, and I wasn't interested at all in the subplot about Izzy's mother trying to be mayor. All in all, this is just a popcorn read at best.

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Of a Feather by Dayna Lorentz
Rating: 7/10
This one was fine. I liked it well enough, but I'm not sure what the point was in having half the chapters take place from the owl's point of view. A lot of those chapters just felt pointless, and it's pretty obvious Rufus' dialogue felt like an adult trying to sound like an owl but was struggling with it. The chapters almost felt like fan fiction. Everything else about the book was just fine, though I wish we could have learned more about Jamie, the girl who befriends Reenie after some mistrust. Eh, this was still a nice book. I'd recommend skipping all the chapters focusing on Rufus' point of view, though.
 
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Juliko said:
Story Thieves by James Riley
Rating: 3.5/10
Uuuugh. I hate it when a good idea is completely soiled by God awful execution and stupid characters. The concept was great, the villain's motivations are genuinely intriguing, and the writing was okay as well, but every single problem this book has can be traced to one thing: The main character, Owen. He is, without a doubt, the absolute worst thing about this novel. All he cares about is rewriting a certain event in his favorite book series, forces himself into Bethany's life without ever once respecting her boundaries, absolutely refuses to listen to her or follow directions, wants nothing more than to be a hero in the worst way possible, refuses to clean up all the messes he makes or face the consequences of his actions, and his desire for attention makes him lack any kind of self-awareness whatsoever. The book tries to make him into a flawed character who eventually learns his lesson, but in my opinion, it came way too little way too late for me, and often times, it seemed to bend over backwards just to make Owen come off as being in the right about most of his actions. Owen just read to me like an entitled brat who uses other people to get his way and pretends to be his favorite character for some kind of validation. Seriously, the book would be so much better if Owen had been cut out entirely. Ugh, don't even bother reading this one. It has a good premise but it's completely ruined by the awful Gary Stu that is Owen.
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Omg, yes! When I first heard of that series, I was super interested because I love premises like jumping into books, but Owen was so irritating as a character it was hard to enjoy. Bethany was much more interesting as a character to me, and I wished the novel had been about her instead of Owen, who barely gets called out on for being an idiot. This is the protagonist the series follows? As soon as that clicked for me, I didn't even bother trying to read book two...

If you ask me, The Land of Stories is much better when it comes to the "jumping into books" premise and I suggest you read it. It's an excellent children's series and actually makes great use of other stories instead of how Story Thieves did it, where they tried to make a Harry Potter knock off, I guess???
 
Definitely agree that Story Thieves really deserved better. Owen just irritated me to no end. I also have no plans on checking out the sequels.

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Rating: 82/100.

Having been born in the early 90s, I never grew up with video games on home consoles such as the NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64. It wasn't until I graduated college and started working that I was finally able to get myself some home consoles such as the SNES, the Switch, and the Wii U. But many people I'm friends with did grow up during that era, and...well, let's face it, the SNES brought us some kickass games that are still revered to this day. Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Final Fantasy 4 and 6, Secret of Mana, and those are just RPGs. But there are just as many games from that era that are more obscure and don't get a whole lot of attention, one of them being Actraiser, which just got a remake, called Actraiser Renaissance, that came out on the Switch, Steam, PS4, and cellphones this year. I never heard of it before then, but a friend of mine was super enthusiastic about it upon seeing the Nintendo Direct where it got announced, so I decided to check it out myself at his recommendation. After having played it myself, I can totally understand why fans of this game like it so much. While I wouldn't consider it one of the absolute best SNES games ever, I do find myself liking the remake a lot. Thanks, Curtis!

Since I haven't played the original version, this review is solely about the remake, Renaissance. Centuries ago, the evil lord Tanzra defeated the Lord of Light (Satan and God in the Japanese version, but Nintendo, during their heavy censorship phase, changed the names due to forbidding religious references) and sent him into a deep sleep. One day, the Lord of Light wakes back up and, together with his loyal angel servant, go across the continent to destroy his monstrous army and allow humanity to flourish once again. The game has two modes: One is the hack-and-slash action platformer stage, where you traverse various dungeons and fight various monsters and bosses. The second mode of the game is what makes Actraiser stand out from other platformers of its kind: After defeating various bosses and liberating the land, you and your angel are tasked with having settlers build entire towns from scratch, clearing away obstacles to allow them to expand their cities and settlements, along with completing various sidequests the more your worshipers expand their settlements. Basically, you're playing as God and watching humanity grow and evolve via a city simulation, which was unheard of for video games at that time, especially for action platformers.

As far as the graphics go, I think they're pretty good. The designs are sleek and modern while taking care to fit into the medieval/fantasy setting, the backgrounds are well drawn, the character portraits are lush and detailed, and the monster designs are pretty cool, too. There isn't too much to comment on in regards to the town designs during the simulation elements, as everything is really tiny due to being mainly a top-down perspective, but it does serve the purpose of showing that you're literally a God watching humanity grow right beneath you. I do appreciate that the game gives every settlement their own unique designs to set them apart from one another, from their houses all the way to the clothes the villagers wear, even if each game uses the same two male and female portraits for the citizens. But hey, even that's a step up from the SNES version, because the original version depicted all the villagers from each town with the same two sprites. The soundtrack is also an absolute bop, made by Etrian Odyssey veteran Yuzo Koshiro. From its epic sweeping orchestras to rip-roaring electric guitars, Actraiser Renaissance's soundtrack absolutely slaps! That said, the game gives you the option of switching to the SNES music if you don't want to listen to the rearranged OST.

One of the biggest expansions, however, was saved for the characters, at least the ones who are named. For one, in the SNES version, the angel was little more than an avatar you used to fight monsters during the simulation parts and had no personality of his own, and was just a naked cherub. Renaissance gives him a much bigger role, a new design, and a whole new personality from the ground up, making him a friendly and cordial, if somewhat sassy and temperamental angel. Furthermore, Renaissance adds a unique, plot-important character to every territory, each with their own personalities, backstories, and skillsets, which the SNES version completely lacked. Playing through their stories also nets you magic skills you can use on your enemies during the dungeon segments. Granted, I've played games that had more three-dimensional characters than Renaissance had, but I still found the characters here to be reasonably likeable, even if the angel can sometimes come across as being rather bratty and a bit of a know-it-all at times. Also, Daniella and Taia are my favorites.

So yeah, in terms of being a remake, Actraiser Renaissance really expands upon the original game and even rectifies a lot of problems it had, giving it much more content to do, including a post-game dungeon and continent. That being said, does the remake itself have flaws? Well...personally, I think so, but they'd probably come across as nitpicking for some. For one, Renaissance adds segments where Tanzra's minions send hordes of enemies to attack your settlements during the simulation parts, and while I can understand their purpose, I often found them to be very tedious. For one, you lose if the monsters destroy your temple, towers, or fields, and while you can use the plot-important characters to fight them off, the hordes involve sending a ton of monsters out in different directions, and you never know where they'll pop up next. Success really depends on how well you place your fortresses, and often times, there'll be so many monsters that you'll end up using up your magic, and magic restoring items don't respawn a lot during those segments. So you could find yourself spread really thin and wind up getting killed easily. I had a lot of trouble with the hordes myself, even on Easy mode! Second, even with all the expanded content, the game is still rather short, as you can complete it in under 16 hours, which is far less time and content than most games nowadays...and because of this, I feel the game is really overpriced. Actraiser Renaissance is $30 on the Nintendo Switch eShop! I really don't think $30 is enough to justify buying a 16-hour game. If the game was between, say, 30-60 hours I can understand, but less than 20 hours of content for $30? Uhh, no. Then again, games on the Switch are pretty pricey overall, with physical copies going for $60 at launch nowadays, so I guess I can't really complain, now can I?

That being said, I don't regret buying Actraiser Renaissance one bit, and I probably wouldn't have even given it a second look if my friend hadn't recommended it to me. Whether you're a fan of the original game or no, Actraiser Renaissance is definitely a game that shouldn't be overlooked. Check it out if you can. I had a lot of fun with it, so maybe it might just be something you'll enjoy if you're willing to give it a chance.
 
I attempted to write this review on December 30th, 2014, but didn't manage to do so until today. Better late than never, right?

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Rating: 85/100

The Hoenn saga of the Pokemon games are very special to me, because while I've been a Pokemon fan my whole life and did play the games as a kid, I often struggled with actually doing anything in the games, especially the GameBoy games, because I often had a hard time progressing through them, or figuring out certain puzzles. I had no concept of the idea that games could actually be completed. It wasn't until I played the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald games in third grade when I actually started playing the Pokemon games more seriously and managed to finally get a solid grasp on things like strategy and movesets. The Hoenn games were also the first Pokemon games I managed to defeat the Elite Four in and complete mostly on my own. Of course, it wasn't until college that I began seeking out more of the Pokemon Adventures manga, especially after learning that, initially, the English licensors never went past the original Kanto saga until much later for some reason. After later arcs finally began getting released in English in their intended format (Mostly, the manga still had to deal with some degree of censorship, with most of it pertaining to child abuse and some gross-out humor), I started buying more of Pokemon Adventures once I actually managed to get myself a job. That being said, I heard the Hoenn saga of Adventures is rather...divisive, and while I do like it, I can see why some of its writing decisions rubbed people the wrong way.

It doesn't tell you right out, but the Hoenn arc actually takes place a short while after the Johto saga. Ruby and his mother just moved to Hoenn from Johto to be closer to his gym leader father Norman. But Ruby has no intention of sticking around, as he wants to leave the house, get as far away from his father as possible, and become a champion of Pokemon Contests. But circumstances have him running into Sapphire, a wild tomboy who turns out to be Professor Birch's daughter, and the two immediately start off on a bad note because they have clashing views on each other's dreams and passions. Not wanting to be outdone by the other, the two propose a bet: If one of them manages to fulfill their goals within a span of 80 days, the loser has to acknowledge the winner's dreams and passions being just as valid as their own. The two of them set off on their own journeys intent on fulfilling their dreams before the other does. But dangerous events threaten Hoenn, and the two impulsive trainers find the bet might not be as important as the impending catastrophe two groups of opposing factions might wind up causing the entire region.

When the series' artist, Satoshi Yamamoto, was brought on to work on Pokemon Adventures way back when, he was originally restricted to just trying to emulate Mato's art style, since a drastic change in art style would have seemed too jarring for readers. But when the Ruby/Sapphire arc started, he was given free reign to use his own personal style and was no longer constrained by needing to emulate someone else. Characters no longer have super round, cutesy-looking faces, and there's a lot more detailed shading and more effort to make detailed backgrounds. Everything has a slightly rougher edge to it, which I think works here because of the nature of the conflict in this arc. Of course, it's hard to really judge the artwork here, as the story moves at a pretty breakneck pace, and while the action scenes are well done for the most part, I found it hard to keep up with what was going on some of the time.

Which leads me to one of the arc's biggest flaws. Now, I've heard some people say that the Ruby/Sapphire arc drags certain parts out for too long. I personally don't agree, as even though a ton of things were happening, I found myself invested in the characters enough to not be bothered by it, and every chapter helped to progress the story. However, the Ruby/Sapphire arc does suffer from one pretty big flaw: Its pacing. Because the story takes place under a particular time limit, every chapter moves really fast, and there's very little room to just breathe and take things in, similar to the anime Vision of Escaflowne, which also had the same problem. I can understand not wanting to bloat the story with unnecessary filler, but I feel like the Ruby/Sapphire arc could have benefited from a few chapters were the characters could just relax and not have to worry about either getting things done within the deadline or saving the world.

Of course, what the arc lacks in overall polish, it manages to make up for with its cast of characters. For all the time Kusaka has worked on Pokemon Adventures, he's always been good about developing his characters, or if not that, expanding their roles beyond what they do in the original games. This is especially true for the gym leaders, who are often just opponents you battle in the gyms and don't do anything outside of that in the games. Here, every single gym leader is not only allowed to do more than what the game allowed them to do, but each one is given a big role in the story and their actions are treated as just as important as the main characters' are, so you never feel like no singular character is hogging the spotlight or doing everything by themselves (Take note, Tagiru from Digimon Xros Wars Hunters). I will say though, I really didn't expect the direction Kusaka took with Sapphire. Having seen the Pokemon anime first, I was very much used to May's depiction and personality from there, so seeing Sapphire, who looks exactly like her, being portrayed as a wild, violent, Tarzan-like character was very unexpected and threw me off when I first heard about it, but that doesn't mean I didn't like the change. I've always had big respect for people who go against the grain, even in a series as formulaic as Pokemon, and I love both Ruby and Sapphire as characters. Both of them have their own distinct strengths, weaknesses, positive and negative traits, and arcs that help them grow as people. Plus, unlike Gold, who never stops being an annoying jackass, Ruby actually has to face the consequences of his own bad decisions and is forced to grow as a person in order for the story to advance. As far as the volumes I've read, I think the Ruby/Sapphire arc has my favorite set of protagonists thus far.

That being said, it can't be denied that while I do enjoy the Ruby/Sapphire arc, it is nonetheless very flawed in terms of its writing. Like I mentioned previously, it's fast pacing makes it hard to read on occasion, it expects you to keep track of a lot of events that just seem to happen back to back to back, and...let's get the Cufant out of the room: The ending twist really comes right the hell out of nowhere, with absolutely no build-up, no explanation, and no logic behind it whatsoever, and said twist just magically fixes everything in Deus Ex Machina fashion. It almost seemed like the arc started to unravel when it came time to end the story, and Kusaka seemed to have written himself in a corner. Needless to say, this twist really didn't sit well with fans, and I have to agree with them on this one. But as out of nowhere and utterly sloppy as the ending is, I do feel the rest of the series' positives outweigh the negatives. Being a huge Pokemon fan, I can't really bring myself to be too mad at the Ruby/Sapphire arc, though I think this is bias on my part since I have a personal attachment to the Hoenn games.

Not one of the better arcs, but Pokemon Adventures: Ruby and Sapphire does have a lot going for it and shouldn't be missed, especially if you want more of an epic, action-y storyline than what the games gave you. I plan on writing about the Fire Red/Leaf Green and Emerald arcs in the same review, as they're close enough to each other in terms of the flow of events that I think separating the two arcs would just feel redundant.
 
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This review was just finished four days ago.

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Rating: 79/100.

(From now on, I'm getting rid of the "I give this X piece of media" sentences before the rating because they're getting old and repetitive)

So...yeah. It's official, I'm in the Love Live fandom now. Kinda. After being blown away by how good Love Live Nijigasaki turned out, and for the fact that it seems like the creators have gotten rid of the whole boob groping shtick that plagued other seasons (Which everyone knows is a huge turn-off for me personally), I figured maybe it'd be good to give Love Live Superstar a try. Being a completely new series that doesn't require knowledge of the other seasons, I figured this would be a good jumping point into the fandom as a whole, since the Nijigasaki anime is based on a cellphone game and is considered more of a spin-off than anything, and to tide me over before season 2 of that comes out. Though as you can tell by the rating, I do happen to like the Nijigasaki anime a little more for a variety of reasons, but I don't want to start this review off on a negative note.

Ever since she was a little girl, Kanon Shibuya has always loved singing...but she gets terrible stage fright and can't bring herself to sing in front of anyone without fainting. She tried to get into Yuigaoka High School's music curriculum, but due to said stage fright messing up her audition process, she was forced into the general curriculum. Disheartened and disillusioned, she thinks her dreams are over before they even start. One day, a classmate named Keke Tang overhears her singing and begs her to start a school idol club with her. Although initially cowed by Keke's intensity and lack of respect for personal space, she does warm up to the idea, helping her start a school idol club and being part of it so she can change herself for the better. Along the way, they gain three more members: Chisato Arashi, Kanon's best friend, Sumire Heanna, a boastful girl who's mainly in it for instant fame, and Ren Hazuki, the student council president who was initially opposed to the idea of having a school idol club in Yuigaoka at all. The five of them do all they can to promote their school and become the best school idols they can be.

Since I saw the Nijigasaki anime first, I'm more familiar with that show's animation style, though I have seen clips of the first Love Live anime by way of someone's internet review of it and did some research on SIP and Sunshine, so I have some idea about the basic formula. Basically, animation-wise, Superstar is a mix of the old art style and the Nijigasaki one, bringing back the shading and bright colors of the original art style, along with details like added sparkle to the characters' eyes, while keeping things like the slightly less detailed facial structures and the improved CGI. I will say though, Superstar's animation really rocks. The backgrounds are all impeccably detailed and full of eye-popping colors, and while the actual animation doesn't always land at times, it really stands out when it does. Plus, the CGI continues its streak of improvements from previous series, looking much sleeker and less jarring and stiff, to the point where the transitions from 2D to 3D and back don't feel as obvious.

Of course, you can't have a Love Live series without good music to back it up, and that's definitely one thing Superstar has going for it. Many of the songs in this series are not only well sung—which is even more mind-blowing when you find out the seiyuus for Liella are complete unknowns, with this being their first gig—but they also have a lot more variety in their lyrics and instrumentation compared to the first two Love Live anime. I also really liked the little "Liella no Uta" ending segments exclusive to the NHK broadcast, with much slower, low-tempo songs and animation in the style of watercolor storybook illustrations. Those are the songs that really sold me on Liella's music. That being said, I do think the actual background music can come across as being a little too cheesy and melodramatic at times, mainly with the swelling orchestras that play during the really dramatic scenes, which makes it feel like it's trying way too hard to sell a scene as dramatic that it borders on obnoxious. I mean, it's not bad or anything, and most of the BGMs fit the feel of the show, but like they say, less is more.

One of the things Superstar tried to do differently from other LL series is to cut back on the amount of characters it centers on. The first two series had centered on nine main girls, with Nijigasaki doing ten before expanding to thirteen later on (Same with the cellphone game), Superstar instead cuts it down to five. This is good because, from what I've read, most Love Live anime often struggle with giving some characters focus while not giving enough to others, which is common with short anime that happen to have a large ensemble cast. Because Superstar cut down on the amount of characters it has, it has ample time to give each character equal amounts of development, and I think Superstar succeeded on that front, even if the main cast do adhere to typical anime archetypes, like the ditzy genki girl, the bratty egotist, the prim and proper rich girl, and so on. I found their development to be just fine, even if it's on the cliche side, though I did feel one character's arc seemed a little too sappy and rushed for my liking. If I had to pick a favorite, it'd be Kanon, mainly because she's a far cry from most idol anime protagonists in that she's smart, disillusioned and cynical due to feeling like her dreams are over, and actually has character flaws that need to be overcome...though the way the show tries to make her overcome it near the end of the series is not exactly the most...ethical.

As much as I hate to do this, I wouldn't be a fair critic if I didn't point out Superstar's flaws and setbacks, and...it has quite a few. Love Live has had a history of relying a lot on unsubtle melodrama in an attempt to really tug at your heartstrings, and Superstar is, unfortunately, no different, especially near the end. I mean, it's not to the levels of Elsie Dinsmore, thank God, but some scenes make it pretty obvious that they're screaming at you to "BE SAD! BE HAPPY! CLAP YOUR HANDS AT THIS EMOTIONAL SCEEEEENE!!" to the point that it borders on self-congratulatory at times. Again, the saying "less is more" exists for a reason, and some of them could have had more logical solutions and presentation than what they did here. Secondly, and this is more a personal pet peeve of mine than anything: Keke's voice is annoying as hell. I mean, not only does it sound really grating and shrill, it often sounds like her voice actress is trying way too hard to make her voice high pitched and cutesy, but instead makes her sound really screechy or obnoxious or like she's phoning it in. She sounds like a screechier Judy Holliday. I mean, it wasn't so ear-bleedingly bad that it made me not want to watch the show (Looking at you, Hikaru from Star Twinkle Pretty Cure), but seriously, her voice actress really needs to dial back the artificial squeakiness. Like, A LOT. Which is weird to say, because when she sings, she sounds perfectly fine! Third, apparently Superstar decided to reuse one noteable plotline from previous LL series. Since I haven't seen SIP and Sunshine, I wasn't really bothered by it, but upon hearing that this is the third time Love Live has decided to use this particular subplot...yeah, I can totally see why fans would take issue with the series continuing to rehash the same tropes and storylines over and over again...and ultimately, that plotline was quickly resolved at the very end through a very cheap, out of nowhere Deus Ex Machina that just made me wonder why they bothered to reuse that same subplot if they were going to tie it all up at the end anyway.

That being said, while I do admit to liking the Love Live Nijigasaki anime better, I can't really bring myself to be too mad at Love Live Superstar. There are way worse idol anime, and way worse anime in general, than it, and I do think it's positives do shine through, so I wouldn't necessarily give it the side eye. Plus, I'm just happy the Love Live anime canon decided to finally ditch the whole breast groping shtick. Thank you for finally taking the hint, producers! So yeah, if you want to get into the franchise to some extent but don't know where to start, maybe give Love Live Superstar a try. It's sugary sweet and has a lot of heart, and in these hard times, a bit of positivity and optimism is very much needed. Also, the song "Nonfiction" is an absolute banger.
 

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