• Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Julia's Reviews on Various Media

This review was just finished today.

54105_800.png


Rating: 75/100

Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is an interesting beast in that it's the very first video game that's also a musical. Yes, really. Complete with characters breaking out into song just because they can, Disney-style. It didn't achieve much success when it was first released on the PS1 in 1998 (2000 in North America), but it has a pretty dedicated fandom, and I myself only just discovered it earlier this year. It got a re-release on the Nintendo DS, but it cut out the songs due to hardware limitations and had a lot of glitches, with one making it impossible to recruit certain puppets. I tried tracking down the PS1 version, and it's insanely expensive now, though I managed to find a cheap copy later on...and this was before the announcement that NIS America was going to put Rhapsody on the Switch, alongside another game of theirs, La Pucelle Ragnarok. So I bought the Switch collection version, as I prefer to play my games handheld, and now I've completed Rhapsody. How is it? Honestly, it's a pretty cute game, all things considered. Nothing groundbreaking, but it's definitely got its own unique charm.

Cornet Espoir is a girl who wants nothing more than a prince to sweep her off her feet, even though she's just a peasant girl living in a podunk town. But Cornet also has the power to talk to and control puppets by playing her trumpet, with her grandfather being a famous puppetmaker. When she and her puppet friend Kururu are out in the forest, they get attacked by a dragon but are saved by Prince Ferdinand. After some shenanigans, Cornet and Kururu manage to see the prince again, only for an evil sorceress named Marjoly to crash the party and...accidentally turn Ferdinand to stone. What's worse, Marjoly is unable to reverse the spell she herself conjured! Cornet is told to consult a sage who tells her that she has to gather five elemental stones from all across the Marl Kingdom if she has any hope of saving Prince Ferdinand from Marjoly's evil clutches.

So yeah, Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is mainly a MacGuffin hunt game with a lot of side quests, many of which are pretty tedious. Most of said side quests involve recruiting puppets, which serve as your party members, each with their own sets of skills, strengths, and weaknesses. There are two that you can flat-out miss if you don't manage to get them before starting the main quest, and there are a bunch you have to go out of your way to find. In terms of overall gameplay, Rhapsody is a pretty easy turn-based strategy game where you move characters on a grid and choose their actions. One aspect I liked was that Cornet powers up her party members by playing her horn, and if you have her play her horn enough times, Cornet can unleash attacks that cover the entire screen. All of which involve food flying down from the heavens, usually sweets such as pudding, cake, and pancakes. Yes, really. I found this to be pretty hilarious and I had a fun time killing wolves and dragons with giant pancakes. In terms of difficulty, Rhapsody has three difficulty levels, but...they don't really make a difference as the game itself is laughably easy. It's pretty easy to grind and make piles of money, so you can brute force your way through enemies without trouble after a certain point.

The game's overall design is all over the place. The overworld sprites are charming and nicely animated, with special attention going to Marjoly's...assets, if you know what I mean. Even the portrait sprites are well designed and pretty cute. The painted backgrounds for the towns and castles are also very pleasing to look at. The actual dungeon designs though...yeah, the game re-uses a lot of its dungeon assets. A LOT. It makes absolutely no effort to try and make the dungeons distinct from one another. It doesn't help that many of them are pretty tedious to get through, with a lot of winding paths that can lead you to all manner of dead ends. As easy as the game is, I actually had to look up walkthroughs just so I can look at the dungeon layouts and get where I needed to go. As for the soundtrack...it's alright, I guess. The actual background music is pretty good, if not very memorable, and the songs tow the line between being tongue-in-cheek parodies to just flat-out cheesy. In both the dub and sub, the songs have very simplistic rhyme schemes and pretty cliche lyrics, though they're nicely sung. Then again, one of the producers for the game flat-out admitted that he was inspired by the 90s Disney films coming out around the time the game was made, and it's very easy to see the Disney influence in practically everything about the game, with the musical numbers being no exception. But the songs themselves aren't going to win any Academy Awards any time soon.

I'm also kind of mixed on the characters. They're not bad or anything, but they're all pretty basic archetypes and don't really evolve past them: Cornet being the happy-go-lucky heroine, Kururu being the mischievous fairy, Etoile being the rich bitch who secretly wants friends but hides it behind a haughty attitude, Marjoly and her flunkies being the comically evil bad guys, Golonzzo being the evil chancellor, and so on. Ferdinand has about as much depth as white bread, and any information about him besides what he does in the game is only found in...an artbook. He spends 80% of the game being a petrified statue so he's a pretty flat character. That being said, the game does try to make up for all this by having a fun English script full of witty dialogue and fun banter between the characters that's not afraid to both break the fourth wall and make fun of itself. The game pretty much embraces its silliness for all its worth and has no shame in poking fun at itself whenever the occasion calls for it. There were times when I found Kururu and Etoile to be a little too mean-spirited for my liking.

So Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is a pretty simple game that isn't exactly breaking any new ground other than being a musical, and you can beat it within ten hours if you're taking the time to get all the puppets and fulfill the sidequests...and yet, even with all my issues with it, I still had fun playing it as an adult. Rhapsody just has this charm and innocence to it that you won't find in a lot of professionally made games anymore, and...honestly, what's wrong with that in this day and age? Rhapsody was released during a time when people wanted video games to be much darker and have more complex plots, and Rhapsody is a game very much aimed at young girls and younger gamers, so most people ignored it back when it first came out. It doesn't help that Rhapsody actually received several sequels in Japan, but none of them were brought to the US, probably due to the first game's lack of success. But the fact that NIS America thought to re-release it for the Switch alongside several of their other games means there are still people that care about it. I even bought the limited edition version just so I could get the physical Switch cartridge, the soundtrack CD, and the super nice little artbook. Plus, in this day and age, where indie developers are making all kinds of games, from the cheery and lighthearted to the dark and angsty, Rhapsody might fit right in in this new gaming era.

Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is a charming little game that you can introduce to your daughter, little sister, niece, or whatever. It's not the most original game out there, but it's a nice little time killer, and...really, how can you go wrong with it being a cheesy musical that embraces its silliness for all its worth?
 
This review was written on August 21st, 2022.

53375_original.jpg


Rating: 77/100

Super Cub is an anime that I initially passed over when it first aired. I was watching other shows at the time, so I didn't find time for it. All I knew about it was that it was based on a light novel and supposedly a gigantic advertisement for motorbikes called Super Cubs. But I was bored one day and wanted to watch something new, so I wound up watching Super Cub on the FUNimation app on my Roku—the English dubbed version, to be more specific—and found that I liked it more than I thought I would. The story is pretty simple: Koguma is a girl who lives a lonely life. Her parents aren't around, she doesn't have much money, doesn't have hobbies, and just lives day to day. As far as Koguma is concerned, her life is dull and colorless. One day, she finds herself drawn to a Honda Super Cub being sold at a shop and manages to buy it for fairly cheap. The decision proves to be a fateful one, as the Super Cub bike literally brings color to her once colorless life, allowing her to do more and go places she couldn't before. She even manages to make a couple new friends because of it. The series is mainly about Koguma's day-to-day experiences with her Cub and is pretty episodic in nature, so don't go in here expecting a linear narrative that gets bigger as it goes on.

If you're thinking the show is pretty much a glorified commercial for Honda Super Cubs, you're not wrong. The first episode alone is just 20 minutes of a character discovering the joys of owning a motorbike, complete with dialogue blatantly engineered to sell bikes, with the cameras lingering shamelessly on logos, and while most of the series is shown in muted colors, when Koguma gets on the bike, the show cranks up the color saturation to show how Honda products restore color to your world. All throughout the series, the characters go on and on about how great their Cubs are. I'm pretty sure you could make a drinking game out of it. Hell, apparently Honda Motor Company reportedly supervised the writing for Super Cub. This is especially interesting since Super Cub is based on a series of light novels that ended not too long ago. But what makes Super Cub interesting as a show is that while the show itself makes no secret of the fact that it's engineered to sell motorbikes, every other aspect of it has a surprising amount of subtlety and restraint that's present throughout its entire run.

Starting with the animation, the series thrives on its scenic backgrounds, realistic character designs, and the show's occasional transitioning from muted, washed out, near-grayscale to vivid, radiant, saturated colors. The last one is mainly used to serve as a mood light for Koguma, showing the things that make her happy, whether it be going to a new store off the beaten path or hanging out with her new friends. I also appreciate that the anime's character designs don't try to make the girls into cutesy moeblobs, with the animation and voice acting reflecting this, remaining low key and subdued all throughout. That being said, the CGI for the bikes is fine, and the show does a great job at making sure the details on the bikes are accurate and realistic, but my one big complaint: Did they really have to make the girls into CGI on occasions where they ride their bikes? They just look really clunky and weird! The soundtrack is similarly soothing and nice, and interestingly enough, the series makes use of both its own original compositions and pieces of classical music, like Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune and a segment of Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, which I felt were used to great effect. More details can be found in this thread here. Basically, everything about Super Cub takes a minimalistic approach, preferring showing over telling, which serves the series very well, making Super Cub actually feel more than just a glorified motorbike commercial, never venturing into cheese or melodrama.

Now, the cast for this show is pretty small. One important character doesn't even get introduced until episode 7, so the series has plenty of time to flesh them out throughout its short run. The main cast isn't necessarily the most three-dimensional, and I can imagine a lot of people taking issue with the fact that the girls don't really talk about anything that doesn't involve their Cubs. At least, not until later in the series, and I can understand that. But I think the main appeal of the series is seeing the three girls bond over their hobbies and passions and seeing how those same passions help them grow as people. I think Shii benefits the most from this, as she has the most depth out of all the girls, and the show takes great pains to show her daily life, how she interacts with people, the things that make her happy, how she approaches conflict, and so on while taking care to make sure she doesn't devolve into a moeblob stereotype. In short, the characters are pretty down-to-earth, not too overbearing but not complete blank slates, either. Seriously, it says a lot that Koguma has more characterization than pretty much every bland male isekai lead ever.

That being said, I really want to rate this series higher. I really do. But the series does have one particular flaw holding it back. It's a big one, and it's in episode 11. That particular episode really riled up fans of the show, mainly because some characters are shown making extremely dangerous and reckless decisions, even by the standards of which teenagers behave. Granted, teenagers aren't exactly paragons of knowledge and wisdom. What teenager hasn't done stupid things in their lifetime? On one hand, I respect Super Cub for actually depicting its teenage cast as being messy and not always making the best decisions at times. It gives them more depth and nuance than most anime characters tend to get. On the other hand, even by those standards, the way episode 11 handled the characters dealing with a particular situation left a really sour taste in people's mouths, and without spoiling anything, I can absolutely see where they're coming from. This is especially egregious because the anime actually leaves out an explanation for WHY the characters act the way they do, an explanation that actually somewhat justified one character's actions, which makes said character come off a lot worse in the anime than she did in both the manga and light novel. Said execution of that scene didn't kill my enjoyment of the series, but I can totally imagine people getting turned off by how episode 11 handled its central conflict. It all depends on your suspension of disbelief, and that particular part does leave a pretty nasty aftertaste in what's otherwise a fairly sweet, low-key, wholesome series.

But I don't want to end this review on a negative note, and there is one thing that Super Cub as a series absolutely NAILS: The unadulterated joy one gets when finding people who share your interests and passions without judgment or condescension. Super Cub is a series that wears its heart on its sleeves, oozing with passion and love for its subject matter, from its immaculate attention to details all the way down to how the characters bond over common and different interests. Going into personal territory here: I was the only kid who was deeply passionate about anime and manga beyond stuff like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Naruto, and so on, especially obscure stuff that hardly anyone knows about, but growing up in a small town in New Jersey, none of my classmates had the same interests, and I was often bullied for them on more than one occasion, on top of being autistic and upsettingly gullible. As I grew up though, I gradually found people, both in-person and online, who shared my interests without judgment, who I could feel safe enough to open up to and be my authentic self. Finding common interests was my way of trying to make friends, being an autistic person who often has trouble making friends and keeping them. Of course, Super Cub's entire premise can work for pretty much any hobby, such as sewing, camping, jewelry, sports, books, and so on. Hobbies can bring us joy, keep us sane, or help us cope with bad situations. Super Cub, and another series I plan on reviewing once I get around to it, perfectly exemplifies that philosophy, highlighting the small victories they bring along with finding joy in mundanity and, as the series itself shows, bring color to your life.

Okay, I better get off my sappy soapbox. So yeah, Super Cub, on the surface, is a glorified motorcycle commercial, but if you're looking for an anime to kick back and relax to, definitely give it a shot. Super Cub has no reservations about what it is, and while it has significant flaws holding it back from true greatness, it definitely stands out from the millions of other Cute Girls Doing Cute Things anime by virtue of the fact that it cares about its premise and subject matter.
 
And of all of the things that finally had me actually post something here, it’s Rhapsody of all things!? Life is strange, haha…

#Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure
I’ve never played this game through to completion, but I’m intimately familiar with its soundtrack. Not its (in)famous vocal songs, mind you, but rather the actual background music itself, which happens to run entirely on the PS1’s internal sound chip and yet sounds dangerously close to a real orchestra at times (while still being obviously synthesized in others, though). I actually think that it’s one of the better video game soundtracks of its era and that it’s highly underrated! I’m kind of surprised to hear that you found it just OK, but then not really; the vocal songs are indeed what really stand out to most people with this game, one way or another. This game’s Japan-only sequel — Little Princess — is where things really get good, though. The songs get less cheesy and have a rather more serious and dramatic feeling to them, all while still retaining their innocent charm. And the sequenced music gets even better, to the point where you almost can’t believe that a system made in the mid-90s is generating all of that in real-time. And it’s all anchored by a gorgeous leitmotif — dare I say one of the best in video game music, nearly worthy of the musicals that it’s so greatly inspired by — that repeats itself throughout the entire soundtrack and enhances everything that it touches. If you haven’t already given that game’s OST a listen, I highly recommend that you do so! (Good luck finding it on YouTube, though…)

Beyond the music, though, I think that the story, characters, and the unabashedly wacky yet earnest presentation of it all are what stuck a lot more with me with this game versus the actual gameplay (which most people seem to agree is nothing special, indeed). Not to mention its rather unsung legacy as the precursor to NIS’s far more successful and well-known games, including La Pucelle (which Rhapsody shares a timeline and universe with) and a certain quite famous series named Disgaea. The fact that this game and its sequels are basically more family-friendly versions of those games (at least as far as their humor and presentation goes) kind of tickles me a bit, and I wish that more people knew about Rhapsody’s importance in NIS’s history as more than just “that game where everyone breaks out into song!” or “that game where they tried to appeal to the girl market and failed miserably!” (don’t even get me started on that talking point). Oh well… maybe this release will help at least a little bit with that!

#Super Cub
With the obvious caveat that I haven’t watched any of this myself and that there’s a non-zero chance that I might never do so, this seems be one of those many anime series that demonstrates that just because something is merchandise-driven — or even a flat-out commercial entirely — doesn’t mean that it can’t tell a legitimately good story! The Pokémon anime could take some lessons from series like these…
 
And of all of the things that finally had me actually post something here, it’s Rhapsody of all things!? Life is strange, haha…
Click to expand...

Hey, nothing wrong with that! It's a shame the Rhapsody sequels never came to the US. I'd love to play them myself, if what you say about its songs are true.

Anyway, new review just finished today.

116957_24514891.jpg


Rating: 81/100

With the advent of Josee, The Tiger, and The Fish being made into an anime movie in 2020, a manga adapting said movie was made around the same time, with art done by Nao Emoto, who you'll know as the woman who did the art for O Maidens In Your Savage Season. Having seen the anime movie, read the original story, and now read this manga, I can safely say I'm pretty familiar with Josee by now. I won't reiterate what the story is about, as my previous review of the movie already went into that, and...honestly, the manga is just a straight up retelling of the movie, with little to no changes in the adaptation process. Admittedly, this makes the manga a bit hard to talk about, as it doesn't really have anything setting it apart from the movie other than just being a comic book version of it.

As an adaptation, the manga does a very wonderful job of translating the movie into comic book form. Comics are a visual medium, but animation involves actual movement and motion, with comic books don't have, so the manga has to evoke the movie's themes and atmosphere through other means, like usage of light and shadow, shading, paneling, speech/thought bubbles, pencil strokes, and so on. What the manga adaptation of Josee lacks in motion, it manages to make up for with its art. The character designs, like the movie, manage to toe the line between being cartoony and realistic, with large, soulful eyes, round faces, and fairly realistic anatomy. Emoto-sensei uses quite a bit of speedlines for when the characters are running, cars are speeding by, or when Josee's wheelchair goes out of control. One thing I did notice that the anime movie had this tendency to put rectangles in the character's eyes, indicating the light reflecting off their pupils, but here the characters' eyes are shown normally, in circles like other anime characters have. Plus, the backgrounds are just magnificent, from the beautiful underwater vistas that can only be seen through scuba diving to Japan's tall towers and urban landmarks, even down to Josee's bedroom, full of artwork and knickknacks.

I don't have much to say on the characters and their portrayal, as again, they're straight up lifted from the movie, still retaining a lot of the issues I had with it: Josee being too much of an ungrateful bitch in the beginning, Josee and Mai being bitchy towards each other over Tsuneo, and so on. But they're all pretty well-rounded and down-to-earth even so, just like in the movie. That being said, having read the original short story in the collection of Seiko Tanabe stories that Yen Press put out a while ago, I do want to talk about the differences between the short story and the movie, and by extension the manga. For one, Josee's disability is actually explained in the story, though even in-universe, no one knows what's wrong with her legs, and we get some more backstory behind her family and why she has to live with her grandmother. Mai, Hayato, and Kana flat-out don't exist in the short story, as an interview with one of the producers for the movie mentioned that they were created so that Tsuneo and Josee could have actual lives outside of each other and have more to do. That was a good move on the producers' part, as it allows Tsuneo and Josee to have meaningful relationships outside of each other and for the latter to gain more agency and autonomy, to become part of a larger community, as she becomes more independent over the course of the story. Also, I don't know if this is more of a translation thing, but in the short story, Josee is a lot more foul-mouthed, to the point where in one scene she tells Tsuneo, and this is an actual quote from the short story, "Fuck you, asshole! Like I give a shit about that!" The short story focuses solely on Tsuneo and Josee and their relationship, even showing them becoming intimate with one another, which the 2020 movie and manga leave out.

There is one thing about the manga that bothers me, and I think this is more of a translation issue than anything: Why the hell is Kana named Hana here?! I don't know if the person translating this got her name wrong, or if she's intentionally named Hana in the manga, but in the movie, both sub and dub, the librarian is explicitly named Kana. The hell? Did nobody notice this massive oversight? Well, it's more of a nitpick than anything, but it's pretty jarring to me, since I've seen the movie three times and know for a fact that Josee's nice librarian friend (Still best character, IMHO) is named Kana and NOT Hana, like the manga claims. As far as its depiction of a wheelchair users go, as someone who doesn't use one myself, I think its fairly decent, though I'm not exactly the best person to comment on this. Someone did write this very interesting and informative article about Josee's depiction in the 2020 movie, and the writer of that article does, in fact, use a wheelchair. I found that article to be really interesting because it points out how Josee as a movie goes against a lot of the tropes used in movies that rely too much on having disabled characters serve as inspiration porn for the able-bodied or reduce them to just objects to teach important lessons. It made me re-evaluate my thoughts on the movie a bit, though my rating hasn't changed.

So yeah, the manga for Josee, The Tiger, and The Fish is pretty much the exact same as the movie, not offering much different, but I still think it's a nice read overall, and a good alternative for those who are unable to watch the movie in some way.
 
That translation thing sounds like something you’d see in the Pokémon anime’s dub, where you’d think that the localization staff has some weird obsession with making sure that two characters never have the same name (with Risa’s name change in The Power of Us being a particularly egregious example, because heaven forbid someone has the same name as a long-forgotten movie character-of-the-day from almost two decades earlier).
Forgotten by everyone but me…

Besides that, the only thing that I have to add here is that it’s indeed always good to see a depiction of disability that doesn’t dip into the “inspiration porn” pool, and instead at least attempts to be authentic. Even if of course what can be considered “authentic” is always an open question with stuff like this, given everyone’s different experiences and all (something that I think people forget about sometimes).
 
Last edited:
That translation thing sounds like something you’d see in the Pokémon anime’s dub, where you’d think that the localization staff has some weird obsession with making sure that two characters never have the same name (with Risa’s name change in The Power of Us being a particularly egregious example, because heaven forbid someone has the same name as a long-forgotten movie character-of-the-day from almost two decades earlier).
Click to expand...

I doubt it, because there are no other characters named Kana in the Josee manga, so there would've been no reason to change Kana's name. I can only assume it was a really egregious oversight.

Anyway, new review finished today! And one for something I've done reviews on previously!

54959_original.png


Rating: 76/100

I've made no secret of the fact that I grew up with Tokyo Mew Mew and have a very sentimental relationship with it. So when the news dropped that a new TMM anime was going to be made, I was hyped as hell. Granted, I had a feeling that due to the constraints set by the modern anime industry, it would probably be hit with a lot of issues that would lead it to be inevitably compared to the 2003 anime. It didn't help that during production, the original mangaka, Mia Ikumi, tragically passed away from a subarachnoid hemorrhage in March. But the fact that TMM was coming back into the limelight at all made fans very happy, me included, so I still tried to be optimistic about this new anime, especially in light of Ikumi-sensei's passing. Plus, with the fact that a second season of this is due to come out in April 2023, I didn't want to forget some details about it down the line, so I figure I might as well speak my thoughts about it now. Furthermore, since I own and read the manga, I figure it'd be interesting to compare this new series to both the manga and the 2002 anime and analyze the changes the three of them made.

As far as its premise goes, TMM New is still the same as the manga and the 2002 anime: Ichigo Momomiya is a girl who really, really wants to get with the most popular guy in school, Masaya Aoyama. But just as she manages to ask him out, a mysterious light envelops her and four other girls, imbuing them with the power of endangered animals, allowing them to change into magical superheroes. They are recruited by two men, Ryou Shirogane and Keiichiro Akasaka, as part of a movement to fight mysterious aliens whose actions are threatening the planet and all life itself. It's up to the Mew Mews to purify the monsters known as Chimera Anima and put a stop to the aliens' machinations. Being a teenage girl, Ichigo isn't too happy about this, as she'd much rather be going on dates with Aoyama, but she's got bigger problems on her hands now.

Before I go into stuff like the animation and the music, I'd like to highlight some changes that New makes compared to the manga and 2002 anime. For one, the character of Mint is shown to already have become a Mew Mew long before the other four girls have, something that doesn't exist in the original manga or anime, where she joins the Mew Mews not long after Ichigo does. Plus, her hair always stays wavy and let down compared to her original design, which had her hair tightly tied into dango buns. One of Ichigo's friends, Moe, also goes through a design change: In the 2003 anime she had short poofy hair that reached down to her chin, whereas the 2022 anime makes it much longer, having it reach down to her back and having it be more straight, curling at the ends. Oh, and for some reason they made Miwa really tall. Interestingly, how Ichigo meets Aoyama is significantly different from the manga and 2002 anime. In those, Ichigo already knew Aoyama and had met him before the series began, but in New, that doesn't exist, as Ichigo and Aoyama are explicitly shown as meeting for the very first time in episode 1, with Ichigo's asking him out happening later in the episode rather than as soon as the episode starts. There's also the fact that the girls' Mew Mew outfits have adopted some changes as well, from having the triangular spikes on just about everything, to Lettuce's outfit losing her signature antennae and looking less fanservicey. The only change I admittedly don't like was that they changed Pudding's romper to a dress and left Ichigo's hair red even as she's in Mew Mew form. Not sure why they felt the need to do that, but oh well.

Now, the original TMM anime was animated by Studio Pierrot over the course of 52 episodes. TMM New was animated by Yumeta Company, which was responsible for shows such as Cannon Busters, Destiny Child, and will be producing upcoming Digimon Adventure 02 movie. The original TMM was made very early in the era of digital animation and digipaint, which looked pretty good for its time period, though during its broadcast, many of its episodes were plagued with errors, as this Twitter post can detail, and you can blame that on animators being forced to rush through very tight deadlines just to get episodes finished, which is sadly still the norm these days. It didn't always look the most consistent, but that's not to say it didn't have its strengths. TMM New, which came years later, has a slightly more refined look to it that fits a lot of modern anime nowadays. That being said, TMM New doesn't always look the best either. There are several off model shots of the girls from time to time, and the backgrounds are pretty dull, too. It says a lot that the 2002 anime makes to make the Mew Mew Cafe look more lively and colorful than this version does. The magical girl transformation scenes are pretty good, and while not as dynamic as the 2002 anime was, they have their own charm. If there's one thing TMM New did manage to do well, compared to, say, early Sailor Moon Crystal, its that it kept the cartoony chibi faces for the comedic parts. Because you can't go wrong with dynamic, early 2000s chibi faces if you want some levity! Plus, it's great that Lettuce finally got her own full transformation sequence for once.

The Sailor Moon Crystal comparison wound up being pretty apt, as that and TMM New have the same composer as well, Yasuharu Takanashi. Compared to the animation, the soundtrack fares slightly better. I mean, it's obviously taking cues from other magical girl shows before it like Pretty Cure and even SMC, what with the occasional female choir vocals and heavy guitar riffs, and even throwing in some heavy metal at times. It's not the most memorable, but the soundtrack does its job nicely. The opening and ending songs are cute too. That being said...some of the insert songs that Zakuro sings are...not the best. Actually, there is one issue that always bugged me about three of the main Mew Mew characters: Their voice acting. The producers hired completely new people to play the Mew Mews and had them sing the opening and ending songs too, which is fine. Love Live Superstar did the exact same thing. But here's the thing: Singing and voice acting require very specific skill sets, and if a person can do one but not the other when both are required, it can cause some problems. Unfortunately, as much as I hate to say it, the seiyuus for Mint, Pudding, and Zakuro are...not very good voice actors. Mint and Zakuro sound really weird and really flat, and for some reason they made Pudding's voice really low pitched, more so than Ichigo, which shouldn't be so because Ichigo is older than Pudding. I know I found 2002 Pudding's voice kind of grating, but at least her seiyuu made her sound her age and fit her energetic personality. Hell, even Pudding's English voice actress in the bad 4Kids dub managed to get that right! In contrast, Ichigo and Lettuce actually sound much better. Ironically, I found Yuki Tenma's take on Ichigo a lot better and less grating than Saki Nakajima's Ichigo voice. Everybody else sounds fine, though, and I definitely appreciate Miwa having a lower pitched voice that doesn't make her sound like a squeak toy. Sorry, Tomoko Kaneda.

I will admit, one of the things I criticized the manga for in my review of it is that the manga seemed much more focused on shilling Ichigo, and later Berry in A La Mode, and didn't seem to want to flesh out the other characters. Ikumi-sensei wanted to rectify this issue when writing A La Mode but was told no by her editors and forced to give more focus to Berry. The 2002 anime rectified this, as it made use of its 52-episode run time to give several characters their own focus episodes that fleshed them out and showed what their lives were like outside of being Mew Mews, with the exception of Zakuro. Since Tokyo Mew Mew New is aiming to be a more faithful manga adaptation, with only a few slight changes, it does suffer the same problem as the manga, as in the other Mew Mews aren't as fleshed out as Ichigo is. That being said, TMM New does make some effort to flesh out the other girls, but with its short length, it unfortunately doesn't have the same amount of freedom as the 2002 anime did, so it isn't able to give the other characters time to develop beyond their initial archetypes. This is in part due to the anime being 12 episodes long, resulting in the pacing being very fast, so it doesn't have as much breathing room to allow the other characters to be fleshed out organically. It has to rush through its material, which really hurts TMM New from a characterization perspective, and I'm not the only one that noticed this either. For all I know, the second season might rectify this, along with probably covering the rest of the manga, but who knows at this point. I do appreciate that TMM New is trying to give Mint more of an arc, so kudos to them for putting in some effort, especially for putting Mint's brother Seiji in here, since he was originally created for the 2002 anime, though his personality here is very different from the old anime.

Honestly, even with all these issues, I still found Tokyo Mew Mew New to be pretty enjoyable, even as someone who prefers the 2002 anime over it. There is one change that really broke my suspension of disbelief though. Remember how I mentioned that I didn't like that they kept Ichigo's hair red when she's a Mew Mew? There's a whole arc where Ichigo worries that Aoyama found out her secret identity, which is present in every iteration of TMM, this show included, and he doesn't recognize her until she's made to transform right in front of his eyes, which hasn't happened in TMM New yet. In the manga and 2002 anime, it makes sense that he doesn't figure it out right away because in those iterations, Ichigo's hair is made bright pink when she's a Mew Mew, not her natural red, so Aoyama would naturally have a hard time putting two and two together. But in TMM New, because the producers made Ichigo's hair still be her natural red even as a Mew Mew, it makes Aoyama come off as being really stupid because Mew Ichigo and regular Ichigo have the exact same face, hair, and voice. He should be able to recognize his own girlfriend on sight, even when she has cat ears and a new hair style, and she isn't even wearing, say, a mask to hide her face! This change really made this whole arc a lot stupider than it should be.

So yeah, even as a fan of Tokyo Mew Mew as a franchise, Tokyo Mew Mew New is a valiant effort to bring new life to the franchise, but still stumbles along the way. The manga isn't exactly perfect, and I personally prefer the 2002 anime because of the time and effort put in to flesh everything out. That being said, I'd still watch this over all the crappy ecchi, isekai, or mobage anime being churned out these days. I'd rather watch an anime like this that, while not perfect, still tries to put in some effort over something that's just flat-out bad or shilled out by a corporation for the sake of selling products. Looking at you, Prima Doll.
 
Missed opportunity here: “Tokyo New Mew”. Painfully obvious and probably hashed out to death by others, but nonetheless: not sorry, haha.

Meanwhile, it’s a pity that the mangaka passed away while they were making this, and so young and tragically at that. I wonder what she would’ve thought about the finished product? In any case, may she rest in peace.

Also a pity, albeit obviously in a very different way: only getting twelve initial episodes here, which is indeed a great way to rush a series. Not to mention how to ruin it if it doesn’t get a second season (which this did, yeah, but what if?). It seems like a decent chunk of anime has a problem of being either too short (13 episodes when it really needs 26 or even more) or too long (this is a Pokémon forum; you already know, haha). Although one could of course argue that many anime actually benefit from shorter lengths, particularly those that tell mostly self-contained stories or are otherwise made with the expectation that they have only thirteen episodes to do things right. It appears that magical girl anime tend not to be among those examples, though, or perhaps anything adapted from a manga or light novel or whatever tend to not be, really. So many complications that you’re no doubt aware of…

As for my experiences with this series: I’ve only heard of it in passing in its infamous dubbed anime form as Mew Mew Power, while only having the faintest inkling of what the original Japanese anime was like. Having heard its name again recently in the context of said original Japanese anime, it seemed like one of those more lighthearted and innocent magical girl series with more of an emphasis on humor and “moments” than plot: a slice-of-life comedy, basically. Which made it not really the kind of magical girl anime that I’d be interested in, really, because while I enjoy humor in measured doses (or alternatively, absolutely all-out and overdosed, if the work in question can pull it off) as well as slice-of-life (with suitably interesting worlds and characters to match), I’m generally more interested in stories that are more plot- or character-driven, and where the stakes are significantly higher with more drama and lasting consequences and all of that. Not like Madoka-level drama, if you know what I mean (although there’s a place for that kind of stuff for me if it’s done right, although it appears that few do), but just something that’s more… “epic”, I guess? Maybe less Madoka and more Sailor Moon or something.

That said, maybe it’s telling that the current magical girl series that I’m really invested in right now is Precure, which (with some exceptions, at least) seems to be much more lighthearted overall than either of those two, yet also takes itself at least slightly more seriously than something like Tokyo Mew Mew on an average day with a more plot-driven focus (depending on exactly which Precure you’re watching, at least). Yet Precure, too, is also a very “slice-of-life” kind of franchise, it seems, and with at least as many silly moments as there unambiguously serious ones. Maybe that’s why I’m attracted so much to that series right now: its ability to strike such a delicate and appealing balance between innocence and seriousness that makes it feel weirdly “just right” (even in the face of other magical girl series that I’d like to explore one day). And perhaps simultaneously how much it leans on its characters to give all of that I mentioned its real power in emotional stakes, not just those dictated solely by the plot. But I think that’s enough for this paragraph (and this post) for now, haha…
 
This review was just finished today.

91AQOFoZgTL.jpg


Rating: 55/100

When I was younger, around the year 2008, I watched an old anime called Hakushaku to Yousei, commonly known in English as Earl and Fairy. I remember watching it all the way through and liking it as a teenager, but after that, I just forgot about it. Earl and Fairy actually started off as a light novel series by Mizue Tani, completed in 2021 at a total of 32 volumes. The light novel series hasn't been licensed, and originally, the anime wasn't either until Discotek Media put it out in the US in 2017. However, Viz Media picked up the manga adaptation in 2012, and only just now have I managed to get around to actually reading it. It helps that it's complete at four volumes and cheap copies of the paperbacks can be found online pretty easily. So now that I've finally checked out the manga...unfortunately, I wish I could like this more than I do, because even by light novel adaptation standards, Earl and Fairy's manga is pretty dull.

And it so shouldn't be, because the premise is actually pretty interesting! In an alternate 19th century England, fairies are said to be the stuff of myths, but Lydia Carlton, a 17-year-old girl living in the town of Edinburgh, knows them to be real. She is a fairy doctor like her late mother, and her job is to speak with fairies and solve problems. Unfortunately, regular people can't see them, so most people think she's insane. But Lydia is determined to carry on her mother's work and give aid to fairies and humans alike. A trip to visit her researcher father leads to her getting kidnapped, but is rescued by a rogue claiming to be named Edgar Ashenbert, also known as Lord Ibrazel and a supposed descendant of the fabled Blue Knight Earl. Edgar needs Lydia's help to find his ancestor's sword, and as much as she really doesn't like him, Lydia has no choice but to help him in his quest.

Having seen the anime in high school, kid me would have absolutely devoured this series. But reading the manga as an adult...I really hate to say it, but this manga adaptation is actually pretty dull. All the characters are really bland and one-note, little more than amalgamations of shoujo cliches you've seen in many other mangas before this one. But the main reason the characters are so dull is that the manga continuously violates "Show, Don't Tell." The manga is very wordy and full of exposition that could have easily been better off actually being depicted on the page. Many characters shill Edgar as being this troubled yet kind man, but the problem is that he's not actually written or depicted in a way that communicates any personality beyond vague smarminess or scheming manipulator, and he's constantly using other people, Lydia included, for his own means, not caring about how they'd feel about being roped into his schemes, something Lydia frequently calls him out on.

Another contributor to this is the manga's ridiculously fast pacing. It jumps from one plot point to the next without much in the way of a break, and a lot of details are just info-dumped by various characters rather than having things play out organically. While I normally like it when something actually strives to tell its story rather than dawdle around with needless filler, Earl and Fairy just rushes through its plot and expects its readers to care about it while making no effort to really flesh everything out. Plus, considering this manga is only four volumes long, it doesn't even have time to resolve all of its plot beats anyway, ending on a really open-ended note with a lot of the big mysteries never getting wrapped up in any way. This is further compounded by the fact that Ayuko, the illustrator for the manga, says in the author's notes that she was forced to leave out a lot of details from the novels, so was unable to adapt all of what was available at the time of publishing. It's a shame that she wasn't able to adapt the light novels in a way that did the source material justice. Whether it was due to time constraints or executive mandate, who knows? Plus, I remember the anime having several characters and subplots that don't even exist in the manga, so her claim that she wasn't able to adapt everything from the light novels definitely has merit to it!

The only positive thing I can really say about Earl and Fairy is that the artwork is, at the very least, competent. The character designs are faithful to those of the light novel, but are still pretty generic by themselves. The backgrounds and the fairy designs fare much better, as they're given the appropriate amount of detail, and many of the fairies are given very fun, creative designs. I really liked the way the Merrows were drawn. That being said, the panels and their placements are very cluttered, paired too close together to the point of it feeling suffocating. The pages are often very crowded, and the visual flow between panels is stunted, making it hard to follow what's going on at times, especially when there's motion and action involved. So yeah, Earl and Fairy as a manga is generic, cliche, devoid of personality, and doesn't do the source material justice. It's really a shame, because in better hands, Earl and Fairy's premise could have been amazing. But it's not likely to enchant readers any time soon. If I ever get around to rewatching the anime, I hope to God it's somewhat better than the manga.
 
I don’t have much to say about the work itself this time, other than that I myself may have been more drawn to this manga’s artwork if it was made about a decade or so earlier, haha. But what’s kind of messed up about situations like this is that if an anime or manga adaptation ends up being sub-par once, it’s pretty unlikely — with some exceptions — that you’ll ever see a second go at it (especially if it’s an anime; those aren’t cheap to make!). And things can get messy really quickly if the work that said anime or manga is adapting isn’t even finished yet. Not everyone can pull a Fullmetal Alchemist and not only stick the proverbial landing with an original ending (and one that’s not even disliked, at that), but then get a second chance to adapt the complete story faithfully years later! Unfortunately…
 
This review was just finished today.

fbcaa0926110ae5ba968e7c18ec85c5d1636764440_main.jpg


Rating: 70/100

The first season of the Magia Record anime was admittedly...kind of half-baked. Furthermore, since then, I was able to play a little bit of the mobile game before the North American version got shut down. Yeah, I'm still not over that, Aniplex, and I never will be. Having done so, a lot of the changes the anime made from the mobile game were pretty surprising to me, and I don't mean that in a good way. But I'll elaborate on that further down. So while the first anime season tried, it often meandered, had too many characters to keep track of, its characterization of Yachiyo could be pretty inconsistent at times, it often had too many subplots that didn't have much to do with the main narrative, and it basically bit off more than it could chew. So it was no surprise that a second season was announced...with said season then getting split into two different series due to production troubles and COVID. So this review will cover both Eve of Awakening and Dawn of a Shallow Dream, because they're basically the same season, complete with the same opening and ending songs. Season 3's episode count seems too little to convey my thoughts on just that without taking into account everything that happens in season 2. Plus, I think it's stupid that these seasons had to be split into 8 and 4 episodes when they could have easily just been one 12 episode season from the start.

Eve of Awakening takes place right after the events of season one, so I'm going to try to keep spoilers to an absolute minimum. One thing to note is that it seems like the producers for Magia Record got the message about the first season's flaws, and seemed to go out of their way to rectify them in seasons 2 and 3. And frankly, I'm impressed with how much they managed to do in a short amount of time. The pacing is much faster, and the creators decided to go all out in moving the story forward, so the story no longer feels like it's just meandering along aimlessly with no direction. Important plot twists are revealed that explain pretty much everything, a lot of the side characters and villains get fleshed out more, including characters who didn't receive much time in the limelight in season one, and it completely ditches the formula of tracking down rumors. Plus, remember my complaints about Iroha being reduced to a damsel in distress in the first season even though she's the main character? Well, Eve of Awakening and Dawn of a Shallow Dream finally allowed her to get stronger and be more proactive like she was in the game, so kudos to the producers for rectifying that. Even Kuroe, an anime original character who flat-out disappeared for half of season 1, gets to come back and do stuff in these two seasons. The animation and the music are the same as ever, so I don't have much else I can add to those that hasn't been said already, except for one thing: Mad props for bringing back Credens Justitiam and using it more than the original Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime did.

So taking all these things into account, these two seasons of Magia Record should be absolutely amazing, right? Well...unfortunately, if the rating didn't clue you in, seasons 2 and 3 still have pretty glaring issues that prevent Magia Record from achieving true greatness. For one, episode one of Eve of Awakening brings back the original PMMM girls, and it absolutely expects the viewers to already have seen or be familiar with the original anime. Plus, if you haven't seen PMMM originally, that single episode is going to spoil A LOT of important plot twists for the uninitiated viewer. Furthermore, the original PMMM girls play a pretty big part in Eve of Awakening, so not only are these final two seasons impossible to watch without having seen the first season of Magia Record, you won't be able to understand much of what goes on unless you've seen PMMM. This'll especially be confusing for those who aren't familiar with the twist behind Homura in PMMM. I can easily picture someone reading about Homura's characterization in PMMM, starting to watch this, and being like "Why is Homura shy and moe here? Isn't she supposed to be some stoic badass?" So yeah, Eve of Awakening and Dawn of a Shallow Dream are absolutely not anime to show to new viewers or anyone who hasn't seen PMMM or the first season of Magia Record at least. This also has the problem of the show not being allowed to stand on its own two feet, relying solely on its parent property rather than being allowed to stand as its own entity.

But hey, all of this might be alright as long as the finale was good, right? Boy howdy, don't even dare expect Dawn of a Shallow Dream's finale to be anything good. Without spoiling anything, let's just say that it completely renders all the girls' struggles to be in vain and ending on a much bleaker note than the game does. Say what you will about PMMM's finale, it at least had some current of hope and was more bittersweet without relying too much on the bitter. No, I still haven't seen the Rebellion movie, and based on what I've heard about it, I don't think I want to. Magia Record's finale basically renders Iroha's whole quest to be completely and utterly pointless, and I'm not the only one that thinks this, either. Even Japanese fans, including people who both have and haven't played the game, hated the finale, to the point where dans who played the game straight up told anime-only watchers to play the game. And for us North American fans, that's impossible since Aniplex shut off the fucking game over here, and really, the only way for us to get even a glimpse of Magia Record's main storyline is through the manga, which is being released at a snail's pace. That, or somebody posting English translations of the Japanese version of the game on YouTube or something. So yeah, the whole thing is really frustrating, and I say this as somebody who enjoys Magia Record! The other issue I have with the finale is what it did with Alina. I'm not going to spoil what happens to her here, but I REALLY didn't like what the anime did with her in the final episode, as it just felt forced and unneeded, further adding to how utterly miserable the finale was made to be.

It's a shame, because the anime and the manga are really the only legal ways North American fans can see Magia Record in any capacity, and considering even manga adaptations of mobile games don't always cover the entire story, even that's not a guarantee! (Granblue Fantasy's manga is the best example of this) But for what it's worth, the anime did make an effort to rectify a lot of season one's flaws, even if it didn't make the landing at the very end, so I'm willing to give it some leniency in that regard, along with the other positives I mentioned above, like the animation and music, along with trying to flesh out characters that didn't receive much development before. As flawed as Magia Record's two seasons are, I still enjoyed them for what they did manage to offer, but I absolutely would not recommend using this as baby's first anime, or for anybody who hasn't seen season 1 of MR or even the original Madoka Magica anime.
 
Just popping in to say that if you liked Kageki Shojo, and you don't mind some magical aspects in a Takarazuka-esque world, you may be interested in Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight. (one of my biggest anime surprises, and one of my inspirations for my Pokemon theaterverse) It is available on HIDIVE.

Also, another thumbs up for A Journey to Fairyland--lots of fond memories of that movie.
 
Last edited:
This review was just finished today.

1522701102-81o0Ig79AGL.jpg


Rating: 80/100

After reading A Little Princess and loving it, I began seeking out more stuff that Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote, though the only other two books she's really famous for are Little Lord Fauntleroy and the subject of today's review, The Secret Garden. I still maintain that A Little Princess is the best out of the three, and I read Little Lord Fauntleroy recently but wasn't a huge fan of it. As far as whether I like The Secret Garden, I don't think it's as good as Princess, but I do like it a LOT more than Fauntleroy. The story centers on a very bratty little girl named Mary Lennox, whose wealthy yet neglectful parents don't give two shits about her and is primarily cared for by her maids. She winds up becoming spoiled, self-centered, and prone to throwing tantrums. One day, her parents and several staff members die from a cholera outbreak, and Mary survives. She is soon sent to England to live with a distant uncle named Archibald Craven at Misselthwaite Manor. Although turned off by the idea of living at a new place, she hears tell of a neglected garden that once was the pride of Craven's late wife. When she finds it, she becomes interested in bringing it back to life. Throughout her time at Misselthwaite, Mary makes new friends, learns more about life outside her old home, and uncovers secrets that may change things for the better.

The Secret Garden was published in 1911, several years after both Fauntleroy and A Little Princess. Having read all three books now, I have to say, it's amazing how much Burnett improved since she first started writing. A lot of the sentimentalism that plagued Fauntleroy is flat-out gone here, and her prose isn't as overly purple as it sometimes was in A Little Princess. Plus, she's gotten a lot better at conveying mood and atmosphere here, as her descriptions of Misselthwaite Manor do an effective job at making it seem legitimately creepy and foreboding to little Mary, along with her finding out about Colin's existence and the various noises she hears in the mansion. Furthermore, her descriptions of nature are extremely vivid, making you feel like you're right there with Mary traipsing through vine-covered walls or long-reaching moors, and it helps that apparently Burnett based a lot of this book on her own experiences and her own love of nature. It's easy to see the passion that went into her writing here.

Another thing she improves upon are the characters. Now, not all of them get this treatment, but the characters here are more varied, interesting, and flawed. Mary starts off as a massive spoiled brat with many flaws that she has to overcome, and the point of the book is not only to show Mary becoming a kinder, more open-minded person through her new experiences, but critiquing the bad parenting that resulted in her turning out that way in the first place. For a book that was written in 1911, Burnett really takes a red hot poker at neglectful parenting methods, both malicious and non-malicious, every chance she gets, which was pretty revolutionary back in that time period. The book points out that all children do need love and proper care from their families—in an era where upper class children would be handed off to nannies and governesses and then sent to boarding schools, and treated more as heirs to pass property onto. You could almost call The Secret Garden an early case study on childhood neglect in wealthy environments in children's novel form, in which children's physical needs are met, but emotional and psychological development are not. Granted, not every aspect of Mary's personality, pre and post-character development, might go over well with modern readers, as early on, she's shown to be extremely racist towards Indians, and while her racism is subtly called out, some may argue the book doesn't condemn her early racism enough. Even with the context that Burnett grew up and published her books during a time when Britan ruled over India with an iron fist, I can absolutely understand modern audiences not jiving with this aspect. Plus, Dickon as a character is kind of overly perfect and borders on being a Gary Stu at times, but he's really the only character that has this problem, and I found him to be much more tolerable and less saccharine than Cedie from Fauntleroy.

Furthermore, a lot of the book mostly consists of Mary's adventures in Misselthwaite, and there isn't really much in the way of any large expansive plot or a linear narrative. The Secret Garden functions as a character study first and foremost, along with a low key mystery, mainly figuring out the secrets behind why Colin was kept away and Mr. Craven's secrets. If you're the kind of person who prefers having an evolving plot that's constantly keeping you on your toes, this isn't the book for you. I know there is one aspect of the book that absolutely won't go over well with modern audiences, particularly the physically disabled. I won't spoil anything, but later in the book, there's a new plotline about a character realizing he isn't really disabled and manages to get out of his wheelchair and throw off his disability like nothing ever happened. Nowadays, the trope of curing a disability is considered tasteless, offensive, and insensitive, especially to people who have debilitating physical disabilities that have no cure and have learned to live with their issues. This article here goes into more detail about this, and better than I can hope to describe, especially since I don't have any physical disabilities myself. Reading this book and learning more about the problematic implications around this subplot as an adult, I can absolutely understand why this can leave a sour taste in some readers' mouths.

So yeah, The Secret Garden improves on a lot of things Burnett struggled with in her early writings, but still has some issues of its own. But I still enjoy it well enough, even though I personally prefer A Little Princess. Any issues it has are mainly due to the time period in which it was written, complete with the customs, rules, and attitudes people had around that time. But I personally still think it's a book worth reading for people who enjoy this sort of thing.
 
Last edited:
This review was just finished today.

81tzoypQYOL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg


Rating: 74/100

Show of hands, who here has even heard of Mrs. Pepperpot before Discotek Media announced that they licensed it in February 2022? No? Yeah, me neither. But out of nowhere, Discotek got the license for it and put it out on Blu-Ray this past April. I thought it looked cute, and since it's based on a series of Norwegian children's books and looked similar to stuff like the World Masterpiece Theater, I decided to blind-buy it and see if it's any good. The story centers on an elderly lady named Mrs. Pepperpot, or Auntie Spoon in the Japanese version (The show's called Auntie Spoon in Japanese as well), who lives a quiet life with her painter husband. But one day, she suddenly gains the ability to shrink to the size of a teaspoon, and often winds up doing so at inconvenient times. Not only that, when she shrinks, she finds herself able to communicate with animals. Her newfound ability gets her in all sorts of shenanigans, but also comes in handy, whether it be helping the woodland creatures with their problems or dealing with the trio of children who like to pull pranks and cause trouble. Every day brings all manner of new adventures for Mrs. Pepperpot.

The series runs for a whopping 130 episodes, but if you're worried about the length, don't worry—Mrs. Pepperpot's episodes are all ten minutes long, including the opening and ending, so they're a breeze to get through. Mrs. Pepperpot was made in 1983 by Studio Pierrot, and the work they did here...has me conflicted. The actual motion is fine, the character designs are charming and distinct, looking more like something you'd find in a Western cartoon than a Japanese production, and there are some parts that are very well done, like the animation in the opening sequence. But the watercolor backgrounds are rather simplistic, looking more like something painted by elementary school students as backdrops for their school play. Plus, I found plenty of blatant animation mistakes throughout the show. In several episodes, some characters' hair randomly changes color for one scene before turning back to their usual color, and I don't mean when the characters are in the background. I mean when they're the main focus of the scene in question. In one early episode, Mrs. Pepperpot is babysitting a neighbor's baby and has to change his diaper. At one point the diaper is taken off, but in one scene, the diaper is somehow back on the baby even though it had been removed previously, and in the scene after that, the baby doesn't have the diaper anymore. How the hell do you miss such an obvious continuity error?! I don't have as much to say on the soundtrack either, other than it's pretty stock standard children's fare. The opening and ending themes are very nicely sung though, and you can thank Mari Iijima for that.

If you're looking for a series with an overarching plot that's constantly changing, you'll need to look elsewhere, as Mrs. Pepperpot is pretty episodic and formulaic. Every episode consists of Mrs. Pepperpot shrinking and finding herself in some sort of situation where she has to either help someone or find a way to deal with whatever's happening around her while making use of her shrunken state. That's not to say the anime doesn't have some sense of progression or continuity. In one episode, Mrs. Pepperpot has to learn how to swim, managing to do so with the help of a frog, and this skill is repeatedly brought back and put to use in later episodes. Plus, the series does have some two-part episodes, though not much. Basically, the series just focuses on Mrs. Pepperpot's day-to-day adventures and that's it. From what I've heard, the anime expanded on the books a lot, creating tons of original stories from the ground up, which I can only assume are anime original filler episodes. I've never read the books, so I can't comment on their accuracy.

With the series' episodic, formulaic nature, you're not going to find much in the way of character development, either. The characters largely stay the same throughout the series' run. Mrs. Pepperpot's husband Pot is the grouchy old man, the three prankster boys remain rambunctious and energetic, the three pets never change beyond self-centered cat, lazy dog, and angry chicken, and so on. Even the original character the producers created just for the anime, the orange haired girl named Lilje (Referred to as Lily in the English dub, but I'm going to call her by the name used in Discotek's subtitles on their BR release), doesn't have much to her beyond being a nice girl who lives in the forest, communicates with animals, and behaves far older than her age (She says she's seven years old in the show). Now, there isn't anything inherently wrong with this, but with a series that's as long as Mrs. Pepperpot is, the situations the characters get in, along with character development taking a back seat, start to get stale after a while, especially during the mid-point of the series.

Which leads me to what I feel is the show's biggest flaw: Since Mrs. Pepperpot starts to lose its inspiration halfway through the series, some episodes had the writers make some characters act really out of character, to the point of having them act really mean-spirited, in order to force conflict. Even Mrs. Pepperpot herself gets subjected to this, as she's normally portrayed as a nice but tenacious and spirited old lady, but there are some episodes that have her act really mean for seemingly no reason. In one episode, a pilot (Who almost looks like an older version of Lilje) makes an emergency landing when her plane malfunctions, and Mrs. Pepperpot winds up getting on the plane and losing control of it. At the end of the episode, Mrs. Pepperpot suddenly just goes on this diatribe on how the pilot should behave in a more ladylike manner...which makes absolutely no sense because, 1. The pilot hadn't done anything to warrant such a lecture, and 2. Mrs. Pepperpot was the one piloting the plane and having trouble controling it, yet she acted like she did it better than the more experienced, younger pilot. I know Japan is really rigid when it comes to enforcing gender roles, more so than countries like America and Canada do, but that whole lecture just felt really out of character for Mrs. Pepperpot, as she hadn't done anything similar in previous episodes. In another episode, she tries to teach Chip, who is literally a two-year-old toddler, how to ski, and gets mad at him for not wanting to ski and being understandably scared of skiing. For one, I'm pretty sure its extremely dangerous to force a toddler at that age to partake in a dangerous sport like skiing. Second, most skiing schools state that the minimum age in which a child can be legally taught to ski is three years old, and Chip is canonically stated to be two years old in the show! Do you see what I'm getting at here? Oh, and in case you're wondering: The show never provides an answer for why Mrs. Pepperpot shrinks and how. I had initially thought the spoon around her neck caused it, but one episode showed that that wasn't the case.

So yeah, Mrs. Pepperpot as an anime is a pretty average children's show that relies heavily on maintaining a status quo and starts to dip in quality after the midway point. But I honestly don't regret watching it. Yeah, the show can be annoying at times, but I still found most of it to be a pretty fun time. The Blu-Ray release even has some detailed liner notes on not just the show's production and reception during its run in Japan, but the history behind the books and how their author, Alf Proyson, created them. I don't know if I'm going to read the books or not, and I wouldn't consider Mrs. Pepperpot one of the better kids anime that came out during the 1980s, but it's still fairly cute and wholesome in its own way. From what I've heard, the English dub isn't very good, so I'd recommend watching the Japanese version if you can. Just be warned that the show isn't legally streaming anywhere and the Blu-Ray is literally the only way you can watch it in any capacity.
 
Last edited:
This review was just finished today.

Mary_and_The_Witchs_Flower_04.jpg


Rating: 70/100

Hey kids, I have a question for you: Who here has ever heard of The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart? Who's heard of it before Studio Ponoc's movie based on it, Mary and the Witch's Flower, came out? If your answer is no, then I don't blame you. I myself never even heard of the book before hearing about the movie, and I'm pretty sure the only reason people even known about Mary and the Witch's Flower at all, adaptation or no, is because a bunch of staff from Ghibli jumped ship to make their own animation studio. But I'm not here to talk about the movie. No, I'll be discussing the book that the movie is based on, The Little Broomstick. The story centers on a young girl named Mary Smith who is terribly bored with staying at her great aunt's house in the countryside. One day, a black cat named Tib leads her to a mysterious flower called a fly-by-night. Not long after finding this flower, she tries to help a gardener with sweeping up leaves, but the second she touches the broom, with her hand containing the juice from the flower, it comes to life and takes her across the skies towards some strange school for witches. It's here that Mary discovers a dark secret about Endor College and finds herself caught up in its mysteries.

As far as children's books go, The Little Broomstick is okay. Nothing really groundbreaking, but fairly wholesome and appropriate for kids aged 7-12. I did have a bit of trouble figuring out a lot of the British lingo used in the book, and I'm an adult. Plus, sometimes the book tends to not know what names it wants to refer to the characters by. One character's name is Marjoribanks, but mentioned as being pronounced Marshbanks, but sometimes the book refers to her as Marshbanks outright. The same goes for her dog Confucius. I will say that the prose is actually pretty engaging, with a lot of evocative descriptions and sentences that really make you feel like you're right there in the British countryside. Plus, Stewart is really good at evoking suspense and leaving the reader on edge, since the book has a bit of a mystery feel to it that's appropriate for the demographic its aiming for.

Unfortunately, the plot and the characters are where the books main weaknesses lie. The characters are pretty bland and dull. Mary in particular is just your typical curious child who finds herself caught in silly shenanigans, and there isn't much else to her. Even the more fantastical characters like Doctor Dee and Madam Mumblechook don't really change beyond their established archetypes. It honestly says a lot that Tib the cat winds up being the most enjoyable character in the book. I also find it kind of shocking that Peter's role in the book is slightly different from the movie. In the movie, while he still helps Mary to an extent, he basically winds up becoming a damsel in distress, whereas in the book, that never happens, and he has an active role in helping Mary. It's kinda weird how the movie is fairly faithful to the book but still has a lot of the same issues as the book in terms of its plot.

Speaking of the plot, there isn't really much to it, unfortunately. It has the same cliches that have been done to death in other books before this, and while The Little Broomstick does have plenty of interesting ideas, it doesn't seem to want to flesh them out. If the book had been longer, it might have had more time to do more with its setting, but instead, Endor College just feels like a giant set piece meant to pad the book out unnecessarily. It doesn't help that with the pacing being so slow, these segments are pretty tedious to get through as a result. In the end, The Little Broomstick is just a cute children's book that doesn't have much interest in doing anything with its premise. But it's still a fairly decent story regardless, and the fact that the movie is giving it more spotlight does help its exposure. Whether you grew up with it or just started reading it recently, The Little Broomstick, while nothing special, is a nice little timekiller for any age.
 
Ah yes, that one movie “that looks like Ghibli but isn’t actually Ghibli”. Or at least that’s how I looked at it when I first learned about it, perhaps somewhat unfairly. Meanwhile, I had no idea that it was adaptation of an existing book until now. Yet I’m also not entirely surprised, as Studio Ghibli does mine a lot from outside sources for their stories (western sources included), so I guess Studio Ponoc really did follow in its parent studio’s footsteps in that and other respects, haha.

There seems to be a trend with the last few of these children’s novels that you’ve shared your thoughts about where they seem to either not be particularly ambitious with their storytelling or often fall into various traps regarding characterization and… representations of certain people, let’s just say. I suppose that’s why I’m myself not really interested in reading books like that as an adult, even as I often myself waist deep in animated works aimed primarily at children. The latter seems to tackle mature subject matter with a bit more consistent gusto and occasionally more grace, I think, perhaps due to the more contemporary times that they were made in (and in the case of anime, different cultural ideas of what’s suitable for children).
 
This review was written on September 17th, 2022.

f7c960732e9ff778addddbba46b896821657757273_main.jpg


Rating: 82/100

Man, Studio Colorido's been on a roll lately, what with all the good stuff they've been churning out in recent years. They mainly do a lot of key and in-between animation for other shows made by other studios, and a lot of their own output consists of shorts or web series. They have started transitioning to making movies, with their first being Penguin Highway, which I haven't seen. I mainly know them for the Pokemon Twilight Wings and PokeToon web series, both of which are absolutely amazing, with one of their PokeToons, Yume no Tsubomi being my absolute favorite Pokemon anime of all time. I did see their second movie, A Whisker Away, and I thought it was kinda meh. Thankfully, their newest film, Drifting Home, which just dropped on Netflix, fares a lot better in both its concept and execution, and is just a really nice, delightful kids movie.

Kosuke and Natsume have been best friends since early childhood, and they often spent a lot of their time at Kosuke's grandfather Yasuji's apartment. Unfortunately, Kosuke and Natsume got into a fight at one point, and Yasuji dies shortly afterward, leaving their relationship strained as a result. The apartment complex they spent so much time in is now abandoned and due to be demolished soon. One day, Kosuke and Natsume, along with four other kids, find themselves in the abandoned apartment complex...and wind up getting magically transported to what appears to be the middle of the ocean, completely blocked off from civilization. Things get even stranger when they come across another kid, Noppo, whom nobody but Natsume recognizes. With no sign of civilization in sight, the kids have to band together to survive, dealing with all manner of dangers like food shortages and the already dilapidated apartment complex gradually crumbling around them.

So yeah, as it turns out, Drifting Home is a survival anime, and a damn effective one, surprisingly enough. Having just come off playing Digimon Survive, which tackles very similar themes, Drifting Home is basically a kids version of that, but much lighter in tone and without an actual antagonist, though that doesn't make the movie any less engaging and heartbreaking when it needs to be. Drifting Home's biggest strength is how much it commits to its themes of survival without skimping on details or trying to make things more convenient for itself. For one, when characters get injured, they stay injured, and their wounds stick around for the entirety of the movie. The characters' clothes get torn and don't get magically fixed like some other shows tend to do. Drifting Home takes absolutely nothing for granted, showing the characters actively trying to find ways to survive, like finding food or boiling rainwater to make it drinkable, things that most anime only tend to show one or two scenes of. Because of the main characters being a bunch of children, there's even more danger to it because their actions could easily either save them or get them killed. One scene later in the movie shows Natsume trying to save a girl from falling to her death, but her method of saving her, while preventing her from drowning, winds up giving her a serious head injury that could either have killed her or made her sustain serious brain damage, even though realistically, Natsume literally had no other options. Hard decisions are made, and the movie is fantastic at really giving everything a real sense of palpable tension and serious stakes.

The same amount of detail is in the animation as well: One thing I noticed in a lot of Colorido's portfolio is that their animation is heavy on fluid, dynamic movement. The characters move realistically and very few corners are cut in comparison to your average anime. The colors are vivid and bright when needed, the setting is down to earth yet surprisingly full of life considering the characters spent all their time in one location, and said location actually looks like a decaying, aging building, with cracks and dirt on every surface, with weeds growing in places they shouldn't. The character designs also toe the line between being cartoony and realistic, similar to a lot of the older Digimon anime. I don't have as much to say on the soundtrack, but it does its job nicely, and the few songs it has are okay too.

Even the characters and their development is surprisingly down-to-earth in spite of the slightly fantastical situation they find themselves in. Now, keep in mind, the characters are all elementary-aged children, and depending on your tolerance for certain archetypes, you're guaranteed to find one of two of them annoying. Reina especially is designed to get on your nerves. But the movie does well in developing them over the course of its run time, and they all manage to find ways to make the best of their situation. Plus, the movie is careful to remind us that these are just children, not super OP isekai protags who get everything handed to them on a silver platter. They're not always going to make the best decisions, and they're all engagingly flawed but still relatable. That being said, I really didn't like Reina's constant complaining and blaming Natsume for everything, even though the only reason Reina is in this situation with them is that she herself willingly went to the abandoned apartment just so she could she could have an excuse to hang out with Kosuke. Really, Reina, you only have yourself to blame for this. Plus, I wish the movie had bothered to mention Juri's name earlier in the movie, not wait until an hour into its run.

Of course, Reina's whininess isn't the only problem the movie has. It's biggest issue is that it's very...blunt in its themes and messages. It makes absolutely no secret of the fact that it's a story about grief, letting go, and moving on, and often times its visual imagery and symbolism have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. Granted, this is a little understandable since Drifting Home is obviously aimed at a younger audience, but it could have benefited from trusting its audience a bit more. The lack of subtlety also results in the movie dragging a bit near the end, when it starts getting bogged down by its desire to explain its own subtext. That being said, I can forgive this because the movie still manages to be a pretty engaging and thrilling survival movie without trying to be the epic of the year. Drifting Home knows what it is, commits to its ideas, and doesn't give a damn about putting its characters in legitimate peril. I can definitely see certain overzealous parents freaking the hell out about the situations the characters in this movie find themselves in. Others might claim the movie is bogged down by emo melodrama, though I've seen other stuff that's way worse about this (coughcoughVampireInTheGardencoughcough).

But yeah, I honestly really liked Drifting Home, and I really recommend you watch it if you're looking for a survival movie that doesn't feel sensationalized or like it's only caring more about special effects. Also, I really hope Studio Colorido gets to do more things, like more movies or even TV series. Considering their repertoire so far, I can't wait to see what else they come up with in the future.
 
More short book reviews.

51mqNao4TuL.jpg

Dear Student by Elly Swartz
Rating: 6.5/10
This was...alright, I guess. A girl with anxiety becomes an advice columnist for her school's newspaper but finds herself in a sticky situation. As much as I could relate to Autumn's love of animals and insecurities about talking to people and feeling weird, I found her kind of bland. None of the other characters were particularly interesting, the prose was middle grade-worthy but nothing really engaging, and the plot beats started to get predictable after a while. This is merely an average book that doesn't really stand out. Nothing bad, but nothing particularly great either.

51a8A7ZAvmL.jpg

Maid and Minstrel by Kate Stradling
Rating: 8.5/10
Wow, now this was surprisingly good! The fact it's based on one of my favorite fairy tales by the Brothers' Grimm, King Thrushbeard, already sold me on it, but the improvements Kate made on the original tale made this book even better in my eyes. The main characters are much more relatable and interesting, the conflict is mainly driven by their flaws and having to deal with the consequences of their actions, and some elements that didn't age well in the fairy tale were remedied here. I also found the prose to be very well done and easy to understand, so I had no problem following the story. I do wish some characters like Rosalind's brothers had more to do, though, and the story is a little short. I wanted to read more of this! But I like Maid and Minstrel for what it set out to do, and it did so admirably.

Mia%2BLee%2Bis%2BWheeling%2BThrough%2BMiddle%2BSchool.jpg

Mia Lee is Wheeling Through Middle School by Melissa Shang and Eva Shang
Rating: 7/10
I don't have any strong feelings about this one, other than that the history behind this books conception was pretty interesting. The book itself is fine, and since it was written by a girl who was thirteen at the time of its publication, it's no surprise that its prose is simplistic and easy for kids to read. The story itself is fine, the characters are relatable and likeable, if a little bland, and everything played out fairly nicely. But it does suffer from having things wrap up a little too neatly at the end, and the prose is peppered with some rather...cringeworthy lingo and slang. Seriously, the word "humongo" is used several times throughout the book, and it got annoying real fast.
 
This review was just written today, though I am going to include a very crappy review of it I wrote on August 16th, 2010 under spoilers. But man, I'm so glad I get to talk about one of my favorite anime of all time!

original.jpg


Rating: 95/100

(This review will cover seasons 1-4, and as of this writing, I still haven't seen seasons 5 and 6, along with the movie. I really need to change that)

Man, Natsume's Book of Friends, or its Japanese title, Natsume Yuujinchou, is such an important series to me, you can't imagine. I remember seeing a promo image of it on the AnimeSuki forums and thinking it looked nice, along with thinking Nyanko-sensei looked cute. But I'm not gonna lie, the second I finished the first episode of this series, way back in 2008, I was hooked, and continued to devour more of it as the series churned out more new seasons...until the fourth season ended in 2012. Four years passed until a new season came out, and another one after that...but I couldn't bring myself to watch them, because it was during that time that I was in my massive anime burnout phase. It didn't help that since it had been years since season 4 ended, I wasn't sure if I could keep up with any new developments the new series had, and I had no motivation to just go back and rewatch the series in Japanese. It also didn't help that in 2011, NIS America announced that they would release the seasons that were available later down the line, and with no English dub. I couldn't afford to buy the DVDs NIS put out back then, as they were too expensive for me and I didn't have a job. As of this writing, I still keep up with the manga and even own the volumes that are out in the US right now, with intent to keep buying them until the series reaches its conclusion, whenever that'll be, and since I have a job, I can actually buy the manga volumes as they come out! So as much as I absolutely love Natsume's Book of Friends to death, I couldn't bring myself to get back to it for some reason.

That is, until this past July. My friends, when the news dropped that Crunchyroll was giving the first season of Natsume's Book of Friends an English dub 14 years after the first season aired, I absolutely SCREAMED with joy! Right in the middle of a work meeting, no less! It was here that I realized: Now I have a reason to go back to the show now! I really hope to God Crunchyroll not only dubs the rest of the seasons and movies, but puts them out on home video! I did manage to acquire the NIS DVDs at some point, but if CR re-releases the series, I'm more than happy to sell my old copies and buy the series anew! Seriously, Natsume's Book of Friends in general is absolutely one of my favorite anime of all time, and one of many anime that influenced my tastes when I first began dipping my toes into the anime/manga fandom as a whole. And honestly? Even after all these years, I still think the series holds up fantastically well, a few minor nitpicks notwithstanding.

But enough of my fangirling, what's the series actually about? For the uninitiated, the series centers on a young boy named Takashi Natsume, who has the ability to see spirits—referred to as youkai—something that's caused him quite a lot of grief growing up. It doesn't help that these spirits keep mistaking him for his grandmother, Reiko, who could also see and interact with youkai. When he unwittingly sets a cat spirit named Madara free, Madara, or Nyanko as he gets called in his round cat form, tells him that his grandmother Reiko collected the names of various youkai in a book she made called the Book of Friends. If a youkai's name is in said book, they are bound in servitude to whoever has their name. Natsume inherited the book, and upon learning of its true purpose, he decides to make it his mission to return the names of all the youkai in the book, including the ones that want to kill him. Nyanko decides to become his bodyguard and adviser, though he also wants the Book of Friends, and Natsume promises to let Nyanko have it if he should die before he has the chance to return the names Reiko collected. The series mainly centers on Natsume releasing the various spirits that either come to him for help, try to kill him, have some beef with Reiko, and so on. Other series have done similar things before this, centering on kids who can see spirits, but few have ever done it with the subtle touch that Natsume has achieved, and maintained for six whole seasons, at that!

One of the things that make Natsume as a show so charming is its relaxing, dream-like atmosphere. It doesn't try to be the epic of the year, nor does it try to make every youkai out to be monstrous beings who want to eat Natsume. There are just as many nice youkai as there are malicious ones, and all of them are varied, with charming characterization that you won't find in other series. Many of the episodic stories lean more on the heartwarming and laid-back side, though that's not to say the series can't be dramatic and serious when the situation calls for it. The series does remain episodic, but rather than use that as an excuse to maintain the status quo and remain stagnant (Looking at you, Mrs. Pepperpot and Digimon Ghost Game), Natsume instead makes every episode throughout every season varied, changing every week, focusing more on how Natsume and his friends overcome whatever adversaries they face, whether they be other youkai, regular people, or even their own personal issues and inner demons. Natsume really takes its time in exploring the various aspects of the supernatural world in depth, preferring subtlety over bombast.

It helps that Natsume as a series actually takes the time to develop its cast of characters, from the main cast and the minor characters, giving them the right amount of depth and nuance that makes them feel like they're more than just one-note archetypes, all throughout every season, so even while the series remains episodic, there's still some degree of progression happening. To quote another reviewer, every season of Natsume also has a slightly different tone from the other. The first was about quiet and relaxing stories about all sorts of youkai Natsume meets. Season 2 instead put the focus more on the main plot and various recurring characters. The third season was dedicated to Natsume’s development, and the fourth season is about Natsume’s relationship with the people around him. Imagine what a wonderful total picture this all creates! And I can only imagine what the fifth and sixth seasons manage to tackle, along with the movie! Every member of the cast gets fleshed out over the course of these four seasons, probably further in the fifth and sixth seasons, so you have plenty of time to get to know the characters, their strengths, weaknesses, quirks, idiosyncracies, and everything that makes them tick, resulting in an awesome, memorable ensemble. The show puts in the effort to make you care about the characters and their individual journeys, something most things nowadays just don't give a shit about anymore. I know I very much identified with Natsume in particular, as while our situations are nothing alike, I could relate to feeling socially isolated due to being autistic and not keeping up with the ever changing social norms and expectations of the neurotypicals. Did I mention I love this show yet?

The subdued animation also helps accentuate Natsume's Book of Friends' overall tone and atmosphere, with soft, airy backgrounds that don't skimp on the details, down-to-earth character designs for the humans, and the varied, creative designs for all the youkai. The series doesn't have a lot of kinetic motion, mainly saving it for when a scene or story beat calls for it, which is a smart move on Natsume's part, because when the animation gets going, it can be utterly fantastic. The early seasons do have a bit of a faded look to it, being made in the late 2000s and all, but as the series evolves with every season, so does the animation, which gets better and better, remaining consistent and staying strong throughout its entire run. That's not a feat most anime can boast, even long series. The soundtrack is also pretty stellar, also relying more on subtlety over bombast, with its pleasant woodwinds, pianos, kotos, and the occasional strings. That being said, with the different seasons having different openings and ending themes, I like some better than others. The first two seasons have great opening songs, and all the ending songs are beautiful and heartfelt, but some of the opening songs for the later seasons start to get a little grating on my ears. Thankfully, seasons five and six have better opening songs, so my worries about those have been assuaged.

With the series being so long, I'm sure people who want to watch it for the first time may find it daunting, and there are some episodes that aren't as good as the rest of the series. But those episodes are few and far in-between, with the series retaining its top-tier quality throughout its entire run most of the time. I know I absolutely loved the episodes about Tama, Kirinoha, the Hotaru episode, everything involving the little fox youkai, and any episode that delves into Natsume's personal history. But I'm sure the main question you're asking is: Can you watch any season of Natsume by themselves? Well, not necessarily. The series does have an episodic format to it, but like I mentioned before, there is progression and continuity, and every season builds upon what its predecessors established previously, so I honestly wouldn't recommend watching later seasons by themselves without having seen the seasons before them. But that's no reason to miss out on Natsume's Book of Friends at all, IMHO, because it's an absolutely amazing anime that 100% deserves the enduring popularity its gotten.

In case I didn't make it painfully and obnoxiously obvious, I love love LOVE Natsume's Book of Friends. I own a Nyanko-sensei plushie that I've had since 2012, along with other Natsume-themed trinkets, I own the NIS America DVDs, I'm collecting the manga to this day, and I am impatiently waiting for the rest of the series to get dubbed and re-released on home video. Natsume is very near and dear to my heart. Discovering it as an insecure high schooler probably helped cement its place as one of my top five favorite anime ever, and it had a heavy influence on the stuff I tend to watch now, though not completely, in case you couldn't tell by other anime I've watched. I really need to get off my butt and watch seasons five, six, and the movies already. So yeah, the fact that Natsume's Book of Friends continues to be popular to this day makes me very happy, and I can only hope that it remains strong for as long as it lasts, even the manga. The fact that the series is finally getting an English dub after over a decade renewed hope for this series in the US, and for me personally. This isn't an anime for people who want adrenaline-inducing action nor gaggles of girls with ridiculously huge boobs covering the screen. Natsume's Book of Friends is, in my mind, a work of art that has absolutely stood the test of time. Few anime have impacted me like Natsume's Book of Friends have, and for anyone wanting something laid-back and heartwarming, yet still cares about its story and characters, give Natsume a shot. I did and I don't regret it once bit, not now, not back in 2008, and I doubt I ever will!

Ever since I saw a promotional image for this long ago, I looked forward to this series. I heard that it was going to be good, but I sure didn't imagine that a series like this was going to be THIS good! Yeah, the story's simple and has been done before. Boy sees demons, gets hated for it, fights them, etc. But this series strays away from most of the stereotypes you see in those plots.

First off, let me start off by saying that this is the perfect summer series. All of the episodes are calm, dreamy, and pleasant and leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. This series really does succeed at creating a perfect, dream-like atmosphere that the series emits. The pretty production values and adorable soundtrack contribute to that too. This series doesn't try to be super duper epic with a gabillion explosions or heavenly lights or anything of the sort. It simply does what it feels it has to do, and I feel they did it perfectly! For those of you looking for sparkly bishounen with rainbow-colored hair and big abs, this isn't the series for you. The character designs are perfectly normal and realistic (the only exception is that orange-haired girl) and don't try to be super duper beautiful, yet they do a great job with what they have!

And the characters! I haven't even begun talking about the characters yet! Everyone is neatly developed, even the youkai. Takashi Natsume proves that he's quite a strong character and is able to carry the series perfectly. Plus I can identify with him and his craving for acceptance and friends, since I myself have those problems too. He's had to suffer quite a deal in his childhood because of his ability, but he's learned from his mistakes from the past. Plus Nyanko is basically cracktastic in the best kind of ways! He's too hilarious to hate! Plus the series doesn't make the youkai seem like totally evil monsters who just like being evil. The youkai spend most of their time alone, and just one simple act of kindness, no matter how small, can mean the world to them. My personal favorite episode was the one with the little fox boy. He was soooo adorable and cute!

I guess the message that this series is trying to throw at us is that kindness, no matter how small or big, is never wasted and that there's value that comes from being in a group of friends, be it humans or youkai. This series captures this feeling perfectly. Everything is so dream-like and endearing, you would love to watch this series before bed. A wonderful series this is!
 
Last edited:
This review was just finished today.

LinkClick2.jpg


Rating: 81/100

So...yeah, I have some explaining to do. While most peoples' knowledge of animation is limited to North America, Canada, and Japan due to those countries being the ones putting it out the most, saying animation only comes from those countries is doing it a disservice. While not to the level of the countries I mentioned, other countries such as France, England, Russia, China, and so on have their own history and outputs in regards to the medium of cartoons. Hell, the very first documented cartoon was made in France, and the very first feature length animated (Not cel-animated) film originated from Germany. The subject of today's review, a web series called Link Click, is a donghua, or cartoon made in China. Admittedly, my knowledge of Chinese animation is very limited, and I've only seen this, The Legend of Hei, and Big Fish and Begonia. Plus, it didn't really help that years before, I had seen some news articles about some Chinese cartoons that had made headlines for blatantly plagiarizing and even outright stealing assets from other foreign properties. Not the best way to get exposed to Chinese animation, I know. But recently, it seems like Chinese animation has really stepped up (Do correct me if I'm wrong, though), and I'm glad for it. Though the only reason I even heard of Link Click was because a voice actor I follow on Twitter announced that they were cast as one of the leads in the English dub and was hyping it up the wazoo. I wound up checking it out and...man, am I glad I did so. Thanks, Zeno Robinson!

The story centers on two young men, Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi (pronounced chung shao-shuh), who run Time Photo Studio, which on the surface looks to be a place where people can develop old photographs. But Lu and Xiaoshi actually have special powers, which they use to help clients. Xiaoshi can jump into photographs, traveling back in time to the moment the picture was taken, assuming the identity of the photographer, absorbing their memories and emotions in the process, whereas Lu can see the events that happened after a photo has been taken, and his job is to guide Xiaoshi through the events that happen. But they have to be careful, because they only have 12 hours and one chance to travel back in time and find what their clients want, and they also have to leave past events unchanged, or else the timeline will be thrown out of whack. One small action can have a ripple effect and the consequences could be perilous. Before I talk more about Link Click, can I just say how happy I am that 90% of the characters in this are adults who graduated from college rather than the usual whiny teenagers you see in anime? I mean, Xiaoshi acts more like a teenager than the rest of the cast, but even nowadays, its fairly rare for post-college adults to star in many Eastern animated properties, and because of this, the series has a more mature and grounded perspective in terms of how it handles everything.

This is also due to the fact that while Link Click starts off as an episodic character-of-the-week formula, it slowly evolves into a mystery and thriller by the end. Link Click is a show that absolutely knows what it is, what story it wants to tell, knew what cards to play, and then managed to make everything come together for an amazing yet heartbreaking finale that still leaves you wanting more in the best way. Things that seem inconspicuous early on are used to great effect later, and instead of relying on unnecessary twists, it lets things play out naturally based on how the characters interact with one another and the world around them, creating a more natural tension that leaves you sitting at the edge of your seat in anticipation. Granted, Lu and Xiaoshi's dynamic does lean into the "smart stoic guy and impulsive dudebro" tropes that are pretty common in buddy pictures, but the show takes care to have their actions and personalities make sense in the narrative's context. All the characters in the anime are pretty nicely written, even if some don't get a whole lot of screen time. One character near the end has me raising my eyebrows a bit, but since season two is on the horizon, for all we know, he might get more development there.

It helps that the animation and soundtrack are both pretty good, too. Again, I'm not entirely familiar with donghua nor have I seen a lot of it, so I can only compare it to not just Legend of Hei and Big Fish and Begonia, but other anime as well. Whereas Hei was a mix of both Ghibli and CalArts and Begonia's art style was more reminiscent of early Avatar: The Last Airbender, Link Click's character designs are a bit more typically...anime, but the characters' faces are pretty angular, with pointed chins and small eyes that manage to toe the line between being cartoony and realistic. The series also has a very slightly faded color palette, but that's not to say the series is poorly made. The backgrounds clearly have a lot of love put into them, with every scene looking like a painting, and while the actual character motion isn't as smooth as other series I've seen (I'm watching Kamichu right now, and its animation is more kinetic IMHO), it still gets the job done. Also, can I just say how utterly amazing the animation in the opening sequence is? From what I found out, the entire opening sequence was rotoscoped, made by ONE PERSON over a period of three months. That is amazing. The soundtrack itself is also pretty nice, and uses a lot of surprisingly competent English lyrics for some songs. But like with donghua in general, my knowledge of Chinese music is fairly limited, so I can't really say much about it other than that I like it. I wish I could be more eloquent about this stuff!

There is one recurring theme in the show that does make me raise my eyebrows: What is it with people in this show being opposed to their kids moving to the city and wanting to make something of themselves? There are several instances in the show where some minor characters act like their kids moving to the city is tantamount to doing hard drugs or committing grand larceny. Hell, one character even threatens to disown her daughter just because she contemplated moving to the city for college and to find good jobs. The hell? I know China has this weird thing about filial piety and all, but...I don't know, I found those instances to be really needlessly melodramatic and forced, especially since the reason some characters even want to move to the city is to either go to college and get good job opportunities that they can't find in the boonies, which many people would consider to be great! Or this might just be a weird cultural thing that I'm not familiar with. Still, threatening to disown your kid just because she wants something better for herself seems a little much, don't you think?

Furthermore, Link Click doesn't really explain how Lu and Xiaoshi even got their powers at all, much less how they came to even get the job of jumping into photos in the first place. For all I know, season two might elaborate on this, but who knows at this point. So if you're looking for a show that gives you all the answers up front, you're probably not going to like Link Click. But I personally really like this show and really want to know more about it. I'm glad I got to sit down and watch Link Click, as its criminally underrated and deserves more love than its getting right now. Whether I'll rewatch it in its original Chinese, I'm not sure. It'll depend on how motivated I feel. And yes, you can bet your ass I'm watching season 2 as soon as that either comes out or gets dubbed into English.
 

Similar threads

Dubious Disc
Dubious Discourse
Replies
2
Views
283
Dubious Disc
Dubious Disc
Princess Viola
Viola's Blog
Replies
9
Views
485
Princess Viola
Princess Viola
Indecision
The place where Indecision gushes about whatever game(s) she's particularly hooked on
Replies
1
Views
157
Indecision
Indecision
EzloSpirit
EzloSpirit's Imaginary TV Shows
Replies
10
Views
603
EzloSpirit
EzloSpirit
CynthiaLover
New companion coming soon
Replies
0
Views
199
CynthiaLover
CynthiaLover
Back
Top Bottom