Julia's Reviews on Various Media

[Juliko]

This review was written on February 16th, 2023.

Rating: 86/100

Don't you just love it when you discover little gems when you least expect it? BL Metamorphosis is a short manga about two people bonding over a shared interest, and I'm kind of a huge sucker for stories like that. It's mainly because growing up, I didn't have a lot of friends in school because I was the weird girl who loved anime, manga, and games and wasn't interested in things my peers liked, such as gossiping about boys, makeup, fashion, and so on. Not that there's anything wrong with liking those things, mind you, they just weren't in my wheelhouse. Actually meeting people who shared my passion for anime/manga always made me feel like I had ascended to Nirvana, filling me with so much joy that I'd feel like I was going to explode. But now that I'm adult, that joy has quieted down a bit, but feels no less fulfilling to me, especially since I now have a lot of friends who share my interests, both IRL and online. Having just discovered this manga recently, I'm kinda surprised I didn't read BL Metamorphosis sooner, because it perfectly captures the quiet yet fulfilling joy that people get when they bond over shared interests and fandoms. If this manga had come out when I was a kid, I probably would have ate it up like a wolf.

The story goes as follows: Yuki Ichinoi is a 75-year-old widow who has been content with wiling her days away teaching calligraphy classes, doing housework, and reading. While at the bookstore, she finds herself picking up a BL manga and is strangely fascinated by what she reads. One of the clerks in said bookstore, 17-year-old high school girl Urara Sayama, notices a budding fangirl when she sees one, mainly because she herself is a fan of BL manga, especially the series that Ichinoi starts reading. Gradually, the two of them become friends over their shared love of the series, with Urara teaching her all there is to know about BL manga as a whole, even if Urara is rather shy about expressing her interest. Their newfound friendship takes them in new directions, brightening their lives and enriching their days.

For anyone worried that the BL in the title means that BL will eventually take over the story, don't worry, it doesn't go in that direction. The manga itself is pretty wholesome, and BL Metamorphosis does show some excerpts from the series that Urara and Ichinoi love, and none of said scenes contain any graphic sexual content. BL in itself is more of a catalyst than the whole purpose of the story, and the premise is flexible enough that it can work with pretty much any hobby or passion, be it gardening, architecture, motorcycles, or painting. From a technical standpoint, the artwork in general is pretty nice, and has this casual, airy quality about it, especially the linework, that captures the tranquil, ordinary beauty of the world these characters live in. The backgrounds are well rendered and the characters have down-to-earth designs that are still distinct, so you can still tell who's who a lot of the time. I also appreciate that it actually manages to make Ichinoi look her age. Most mangaka struggle with drawing old people, either making them look like tiny cartoon dwarves or just standard young people with a few stray wrinkles drawn on. Kaori Tsurutani captures all the little details that come with old age, such as the boniness of Ichinoi's fingers and the papery-ness of her skin. Even her posture and body language are good at conveying the slowness of her movement, which is hard to do.

And to nobody's surprise, Ichinoi and Urara absolutely carry the manga on their backs. The duo make such a loveable pair and it's very sweet to watch the two of them grow and change over the course of the manga, whether it be Urara learning to embrace her interests and chase her dreams without shame or Ichinoi's well-intentioned bluntness and excitement upon embracing her new hobby. I could definitely relate to Urara feeling ashamed of her hobbies and feeling ostracized because she doesn't share the same interests as her peers and finding it hard to make friends her own age. When I was a kid and getting deep into anime/manga beyond Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, I wanted to share my passions with everyone, but kids at school were either put off by it or picked on me afterward. The manga doesn't explain if Urara was bullied for her interests in the past, but it does a great job at conveying her anxiety and indecisiveness over whether she should embrace her authentic self or try to be normal, and her arc is very satisfying without taking the easy way out. Even some members of my immediate family were put off by some of the stuff I consumed, and explaining things didn't always help, so I started becoming more guarded and only shared my interests with those who already knew about it. Even most of the side characters have a surprising amount of depth and personality to them, such as the author of the manga Urara and Ichinoi like, who is surprisingly prominent. The only characters I don't have a good read on are Urara's childhood friend and his girlfriend. Their whole subplot really confused me, mainly because they don't get a lot of time to show what they're like and how or why they come to the decisions they make later on. They're not bad characters or anything, but I wish more could have been done with them and that there had been more clarity in regards to just what their deal is.

If you're someone who prefers your manga to be fast paced, action packed, and more on the loud and comedic side, you're probably not gonna like BL Metamorphosis. The manga takes pride in the fact that its a much quieter take on the premise of fandom. To quote another reviewer, so many manga about fandom are big—they focus on big emotions, big events, on collection and consumption. There's nothing inherently wrong with that if the execution is done well, but I wish more took the route BL Metamorphosis does, on how fandom can sometimes be the simple pleasure of meeting others who share an interest and turning that into friendship. It helps that the manga is pretty short and sweet, complete at 5 volumes, though I kind of wish it had been a bit longer so it could have explored some more things, like Urara's past, more of her male childhood friend, or even what Ichinoi was like back when she was younger and growing up when manga was making waves. That would have been an interesting angle. But nevertheless, I'm happy with BL Metamorphosis as it is. It's a sweet, wholesome, laid-back manga about two people from different points in life bonding over a new hobby and forging a friendship over it, and you know I'm always a sucker for those kinds of stories. And knowing that there's a live-action movie based on this, I kind of want to track it down and watch it. Hey Netflix! Care to stream that?

 

[Juliko]

This is one of my older reviews, written on August 7th, 2013

Rating: 93/100

There are anime that get aired on Saturday morning...and then there are anime that NEED to be aired on a Saturday morning! Seriously, why hasn't Popolocrois Monogatari been released to the US yet or broadcasted on some children's channel like NickToons or Cartoon Network yet?! If there's any children's anime that SERIOUSLY needs to be exported to the US and introduced to American children, Popolocrois is it! It's super cute while not going to the point of saccharine, it has engaging, funny, relatable characters, deep character study, a fun and simple yet deep and interesting story, heartwarming scenes, great musical numbers, and just an overall fun and whimsical tale of friendship and valor. Popolocrois is just the kind of anime that children really need to see! It's a great and fun tale full of whimsy, and it proves that children's shows can be wonderful, creative, and great with the right amount of effort put into it, and don't need to just be glorified toy advertisements. But I can see some small things that could easily prevent it from being a big hit with American children, but that doesn't make it any less awesome!

If you can believe it, this anime is actually a sequel to the first video game. I have not played the video game, as it hasn't been released in the US in its original form. Luckily, the group that fansubbed it made some liner notes that describe the characters and the first game's plot in detail, so you won't feel lost about who's who and what's going on. Anyway, the story's about a prince named Pietro who, with his forest witch friend Narcia, meet a strange purple haired girl named Hyuu, who suddenly appeared because of the antics of the Demon King GamiGami. As it turns out, Hyuu is part of a supposedly dead race of people called the Wind Kind, and despite their attempts to befriend her and help her cope with the situation, Hyuu is frustrated and wants to know about the Wind Kind. Her bodyguards, Ston and Sanda, decide to steal Pietro's dragon powers, which prompts Hyuu to join forces with GamiGami and try to become the queen of Popolocrois so she can find other wind people like her. This causes quite a lot of problems for Popolocrois and everyone in it, and she's constantly worrying whether everything she's doing is right.

This was made in 1998, so of course the animation is going to have nineties written all over it, but for the most part, it's actually very well made. The colors are soft and muted, yet bright, the movements are fluid when they want to be, and when the situation calls for it, it can really set the mood. If you can believe, it was made by a brand new company back then. No, it wasn't Bones, it wasn't Sunrise, KyoAni, Gonzo, or anyone of that caliber. It was made by none other than Bee Train, which really was a new company back then, and this anime really showed what they were capable of. Yeah, the cutesy, chibi character designs can be very off-putting, especially if you think this anime's gonna be a saccharine fest, WHICH IT ISN'T! But then again, this style was prominent in the games as well, so don't think the character designers weren't faithful. I seem to find that I have a liking for the old style of animation as its very easy on the eyes with their soft, muted colors and occasional fuzziness.

Now to sing praises about one really great part of the show: the music! The entire soundtrack fits the show to a T! The soft, dreamy tunes fit the moods perfectly, all the pieces are wonderfully composed with that sweet, pleasant nineties feel to it you'd find in most anime of the nineties, and the effects they can have on scenes are awesome! Plus, there's always a kind of whimsy in every single piece of background music. Even in the sad scenes there's something whimsical going on, and it doesn't hurt them one bit. Guess who composed the OST? Ko Otani. You may think you've never heard of him, but trust me. You've heard his work. This is the guy who did the OSTs for anime like Haibane Renmei, Outlaw Star, Gundam Wing, Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-, Shakugan no Shana 2nd Season, .Hack//Quantum, Eyeshield 21, Zatch Bell, Hyouge Mono, Hakuoki, Another, Deltora Quest, Pumpkin Scissors, and Blade of the Immortal. Some of you hardcore gamers may know him for his work on Shadow of the Colossus, Sky Odyssey, and Sengoku Basara 3, so this guy has a pretty good resume. Another great part of the OST are the insert songs. It's not often you see an actual insert song play in a majority of episodes, and musical numbers in anime are normally very uncommon aside from a concert scene, yet Popolocrois has musical numbers. I'll bet you're thinking they're just carbon copies of G3 My Little Pony songs that are cliche, dumb, annoying, and have no relevance to the story whatsoever. WRONG! The musical numbers have great orchestral music, wonderful singing, and fantastic animation, very much like the ones in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. They're pretty much the best songs I've ever heard.

Next up is the second best thing about this show: the characters. You may think that, because the character designs are all cutesy and make the show look like its for kids only, that there's gonna be rehashed and reused character cliches like the main male character being an idiot hero or a spoiled brat, the love interest, and the clingy jealous girl who hates it when her male gets interested in any other girl, the shy girl who does nothing but worry about the main character, the stupid villain who wants to take over the world for stupid reasons, etc. Again, WRONG! Yes, they look like they could fall into every one of these stereotypes, but they don't! They all possess subtle but unique and awesome traits that most characters nowadays lack. Even the villains here are amazing, and the best of them is Demon King GamiGami, who is not only awesomely hilarious with his over-the-top hammy voice acting and his strange love for making weird mechas out of junk, but actually has much more motivation than just taking over the world and getting rid of Pietro. Every character is very likeable. Pietro, while a prince, is just like any other kid: sweet, kind, is a little impulsive but not in a bad way, and is a little short sighted at times. But when the going gets tough, he'll be willing to learn and improve himself for the better. Narcia, while just as sweet and nice, doesn't have a lot of confidence and often keeps to herself, but instead of blowing this out of proportion, she asks for advice and talks to whoever is willing to listen about her problems. By God, why can't more anime characters follow her example?! I will admit, however, that the only character I've had problems with is Hyuu. I don't hate her. In fact, I really like her (and she has the best insert song in the whole series), but...she is the most freaking selfish and indecisive character EVER! By God, every other episode she decides one thing and then changes her mind and does something else while constantly not seeing what her problem is! I'll let it slide this time because it pretty much drives the plot, and that she DOES explain her reasons for doing what she does, even if she doesn't solve them right away.

I can't really seem to find any real flaws with this show, other than Hyuu's constant doubting and indecisiveness. But I do know that this show does have things that can really turn off other people, which may contribute to why it's so underrated and why it won't be able to be aired on American TV. For one thing, episodes 12 through 21 are mostly character focused episodes, which are awesome, though most people may find them to be pointless filler, and these episodes are anything BUT pointless, and they're rather slow paced, so one would have to be patient and appreciate what the episodes have to offer if they want to enjoy them. Secondly, GamiGami seems to love fanboying over Narcia like a kid with a crush. Yeah, an old man who crushes on a 12-year-old girl. To be fair, nothing comes of it, but I can see this aspect making people uncomfortable. That, and people may look away from it just because of the cutesy chibi character designs and the fact it's based on an RPG alone, which is a HUGE mistake, as a lot of people I know believe that Popolocrois is one of the best RPG adaptations ever, especially considering OTHER adaptations (Final Fantasy Unlimited). What also surprised me about Popolocrois is that it actually managed to subtly sneak some very suggestive things past the radar (NOT SEXUAL!!!), and no children's show I ever saw managed to address such an issue in that way despite its warm, innocent, and idealistic nature. I thought it was a pretty bold move. It's in episode 11, and believe me, you'll know the scenes when you see them. This is why I love Japan's kids shows, as they're not afraid to treat certain serious issues with the gravity they have in real life or sugarcoat them due to fear of parents complaining.

So what if Popolocrois looks cutesy and is based on a video game? You guys are really missing out on this diamond of an anime. It's sweet, it's nice, it knows when the stakes are serious, it averts so many fantasy cliches, and it's just downright awesome! I highly recommend Popolocrois Monogatari for those who want a wholesome, light-hearted but still substantial anime to watch.

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Fun fact about me and this series: I actually kept on mistaking its name as “Popolocrisis” and thought for a long time that it was actually some uniquely Japanese take on SimCity with a over-population twist or something, haha. That’s pretty much the extent of my exposure to the series before now, though. Your review is making me think that perhaps I should change that, though…

In any case, it’s nice to see decent, intelligent children’s TV being alive and well even back then!

 

[LightningTopaz]

I very vaguely remember seeing some of the show a long time ago--but have never tracked it down and watched the whole thing.

 

[Juliko]

This review was written on January 21st, 2023.

Rating: 82/100

Digimon has been a part of my life for about as long as I can remember. I religiously watched the 1999 TV series as a kid, along with the seasons afterward (With the exception of Data Squad and Fusion). At one point, I saw commercials for Digimon The Movie, but I couldn't go see it in theaters at the time due to other obligations like school. Years after that, I was able to rent it on VHS from a video store. It was...certainly something. I found out later that Saban's Digimon The Movie was actually three movies mashed into one, cutting a lot of content in the process, far more so than they did with the series. Later in life, I saw two of those movies in their original format, this one included, with English subtitles, and I was surprised with just how different they were from the edited versions that made up Digimon The Movie. Coming back and rewatching the Digimon Adventure Pilot as an adult, with full knowledge of the TV series, I'm even more impressed by just how good this short film is as a prequel to the series and on its own merits.

Two young children, Tai and his younger sister Kari (Yes, I'm going to use their English dub names), are shocked to find that a mysterious egg magically popped out of their computer. The egg eventually hatches into a mysterious creature who calls itself Koromon. Although confused and baffled as to where it came from, it doesn't take long for the kids to befriend Koromon. Later that night, Koromon suddenly changes into a large dinosaur who begins causing mass destruction and wandering the streets of Tokyo, with Kari on its back. Things get even more dangerous when another creature, a green bird monster, appears from the sky and fights with the newly evolved Koromon, with Tai, Kari, and several other children caught in the crossfire.

If you're thinking this movie is kinda short, you're right. The Digimon Adventure Pilot is basically a 20-minute short film that premiered in theaters the day before the TV series aired on Japanese TV, fully intended to be seen as a prequel to the latter. The story it tells is pretty simple, showing a bunch of kids befriending a monster and then getting caught in a monster fight in the middle of the city. It's simple, but effective and it doesn't try to be anything it isn't. Helping this is the fluid animation and direction courtesy of Mamoru Hosoda, who directed this along with the second Digimon movie to come after this, Our War Game. The colors are muted and there isn't a lot of shading, but no detail is ever skimped, and the animation itself switches wildly from minimalistic to absolutely gorgeous, and it really works here. The Greymon/Parrotmon fight is especially well animated, actually showing their destruction in detail along with things like the movement of their claws and how their bodies overwhelm everything around them. The whole fight is brutal and visceral without ever going over-the-top, and it just works!

The soundtrack is especially interesting here, because in the Japanese version, it's just one long song, being Maurice Ravel's 1928 musical composition Bolero. I don't know whose idea this was, but I think it was a stroke of genius considering the piece itself is only 15 minutes long, this is a 20-minute movie, and it's used to great effect as everything builds and builds as it gets to the end. I don't know if the producers had to pay royalties to use Bolero here or not, as from what I can find, Bolero's copyright doesn't expire until January 1st, 2025, so it's not in the public domain in certain countries yet. Of course, you can't have Digimon without the late great Kouji Wada's "Butterfly" which plays during the end credits. But don't tell that to Saban, who felt the need to shove in a crap ton of unfitting electronic music and pop rock songs in a desperate attempt to cater to the 90s kids, like songs by Fat Boy Slim and Smash Mouth.

The characters are a bit harder to talk about because Tai and Kari are very young children in this special, and the movie is mainly just about them befriending Koromon and getting caught up in the monster attack that follows. Then again, this movie isn't really about giving them deep characterization. That's what the TV series is for, but the pilot does provide some important context for a major event that happens in the TV series, showing why this event had such a big impact on the characters in the series. But that's not to say Tai and Kari don't have any charm to them here, and the animation is good at showing their personalities through their actions and body language. Though I do balk at the idea of a seven-year-old Tai cooking for his toddler-aged sister. Seriously, no kid I know ever learned to cook while in the single digits. Seriously, what is it with anime and depicting children as being more self-sufficient than they are?!

On its own, the Digimon Adventure Pilot is a very solid intriguing movie that does an amazing job at laying the foundation for the franchise that spawned from it. If you're a Digimon fan, you owe it to yourself to check out this prequel.

 

[Juliko]

This review was written on January 18th, 2023.

Rating: 87/100

When it comes to reading, writing, and creating media in general, I abide by the philosophy that pretty much everything has been done before, but as long as you're passionate about what you make and create believable characters, you can make even the most cliche premises enjoyable. It all comes down to execution. Granted, the premise of a bunch of kids getting together to form a band has been done lots of times before—K-On, Given, Angel's 3Piece, Bang Dream, Kids on the Slope, Show By Rock, Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, and so on—but there's a lot you can do with it, and as long as you're able to make your audience care about what's happening, it doesn't matter how cliche your premise is. For example, I can't stand K-On because it seemed way more interested in cashing in on the moe trend than telling a compelling story, whereas another band-focused anime I watched, Given, while not having the best animation and ending on an open-ended note, had stronger characters, better writing, and actually went into the nitty-gritty about music, instruments, the items used for them, and starting a band in general. One anime that came out in 2022, which I had admittedly missed out on, takes the fluid animation of K-On and the character writing in Given and manages to make something truly wonderful. What's this anime you ask? A little recently discovered gem called Bocchi The Rock.

Now, a premise like this has obviously been done before. Hitori Gotoh is a young girl who really loves playing guitar and wants to start a band. Unfortunately, she's so shy and anxious that she can barely function if someone so much as talks to her. Everything she's tried to remedy this has failed, so she's spent a good chunk of her life without friends. One day, a girl named Nijika Ichiji notices her guitar and approaches Hitori, begging her to fill in for her band Kessoku Band, as their guitarist recently ditched them. Hitori finds herself getting dragged into Nijika's band and putting on a concert with them that very day. As anxious as this makes Hitori, she decides to stick with Kessoku Band and become their guitarist full-time, thinking this might be the opportunity she's been waiting for. But she's woefully unprepared for just how hard life in a band really is.

If there's one thing that made the anime for Bocchi The Rock famous, its not just its animation, but the sheer creativity that went into it. Motion is fluid and kinetic, the backgrounds are given the appropriate amount of detail without much in the way of clutter, and I'm so glad it didn't render the girls in CGI during the concert sequences. But the thing that makes Bocchi The Rock stand out in the animation department is the different art styles used to convey Bocchi's anxiety or state of mind, ranging from stop-motion claymation to intentionally low poly Nintendo 64-level CGI. The series even goes so far as to use stock live-action footage, not to hide animation short cuts, of which there are few, but for the sake of a joke, a visual gag, or to yet again convey something happening with Bocchi. For example: When Bocchi barfs from anxiety after a concert, footage of various waterfalls from the Yuda Dam in Iwate Prefecture. Do I even need to mention the memetic scene of Bocchi literally glitching out on the ground when presented with the idea of starting a social media account to promote the band? CloverWorks went all out in getting really experimental with the animation. Would you guys kill me if I said I feel Bocchi The Rock is better animated than K-On?

Of course, you can't have an anime about music without a good soundtrack to back it up, right? I admit I'm not an expert on music in and of itself, so I can't really comment on things like composition and the more technical aspects of music. Plus, all of Kessoku Band's songs consist of rock numbers, and rock isn't normally my preferred genre of music. That being said, the songs are all well-sung, well-made, and all serve their purpose in the narrative. The soundtrack itself is pretty good on its own, both in and out of context, so while there are some anime whose soundtracks I like better, Bocchi The Rock makes good use of its soundtrack, especially since it's an anime that's about making music. Speaking of that, one thing I really appreciate is that Bocchi The Rock actually goes out of its way to show just how hard being in a band is and making it big, such as selling tickets to meet quotas, the band making pretty common mistakes during their concerts, dealing with broken instruments, indifferent concert-goers, and the consequences that rise from those things. Given touched upon stuff like this very briefly, but not to the extent Bocchi The Rock does. That was one thing I admittedly didn't like about K-On: whenever the girls in that show had to deal with certain issues, they were always conveniently resolved by some contrivance that would never happen in real life, and they never really learned from said mistakes. Bocchi The Rock actually has the girls struggle and deal with the pros and cons of being in a new band and allows them to make mistakes.

Which is a nice segue into the characters and their overall characterization, and...I'm not gonna lie, the girls from Bocchi The Rock are much more developed and three-dimensional than the characters from K-On could ever hope to be, mainly because Bocchi actually allows its characters to have a good mix of both strengths and flaws that make them feel like regular high school kids and more than just simple moeblobs. Plus, any flaws they do have are used to meaningful effect and aren't presented as simple cute quirks that we're supposed to d'awww at, nor does the writing try to reduce them to nothing but walking moe stereotypes. For example, one thing I absolutely HATE about K-On is one particular scene where Yui has to get her guitar fixed, but apparently Yui, a teenager, legitimately had NO IDEA that she was supposed to actually pay money to have it fixed, and the only reason she got out of that situation was because Mugi paid for the repairs since Yui didn't have the money on her. This, to me, is bad writing because no teenager is so stupid that they don't know that you have to pay money for basically any repairs for anything, and because Yui doesn't face any consequences for this, as Mugi pays for the repairs because she's a convenient rich girl. This scene, to me, exemplifies K-On's problem as a whole: It's much more interested in infantilizing its characters for the sake of cashing in on the moe trend than actually caring about telling a story and fleshing out its characters beyond their main archetype. In Bocchi The Rock, the character Kita buys a bass which she mistook for a guitar, but she didn't know she bought a bass because the instrument she bought has six strings, and most basses have four strings. Since Kita flat-out admits that she's not very music-savvy and only took up playing guitar recently, it makes sense for her not to know much about basses, and the only reason she learns she made a mistake is because Ryo, who not only plays the bass but is very knowledgeable about them, informs her that some basses are made with six strings. So it makes sense that Kita would make this kind of mistake, and it's the kind of mistake any dumb teenager would make if they didn't know about this stuff beforehand. Plus, this mistake plays into the conflict that jump starts the series as a whole and has consequences for Kessoku Band, which I think is a stroke of genius on the creator's part.

But the big question is, how is its portrayal of Bocchi's anxiety? Honestly, as someone who has Generalized Anxiety Disorder and is autistic, I think Bocchi The Rock depicts anxiety pretty well. As over-the-top as it is, I found a lot of Bocchi's worries to be pretty relatable. I too have a tendency to overanalyze situations to the point of misreading them and assuming the worst, though unlike Bocchi, I often got bullied pretty badly throughout a good portion of my life, which was the main contributor to my own lack of self-esteem, self-worth, and sometimes self-loathing. I also appreciate that Bocchi The Rock depicts Bocchi's anxiety as a genuine issue that causes legitimate problems for her rather than trying to make it into a cute moe quirk to milk for easy sympathy, and any jokes made about it never cross the line into being mean-spirited (Except for one instance in episode 7, but that's as far as it goes). Plus the anime doesn't make her issues magically go away with the power of music and being in the spotlight, even in the final episode, which I definitely appreciate.

Honestly, to me, Bocchi The Rock has very little in terms of flaws. My only real gripes with it are that as much as I like Kikuri as a character, she was mainly just there to be the drunk lady whose antics are always played for laughs, though even that's offset by the fact that she often gets called out on her actions, along with the one bit of mean-spiritedness on the part of Bocchi's parents in episode 7. Plus, the anime ends on a pretty open-ended "read the manga" note, which some might not appreciate. But those are small potatoes compared to the big picture, and I'm happy I finally sat down and gave Bocchi The Rock a chance, because it's pretty much everything I wish K-On had been, and I can absolutely see why it became so popular, and in my opinion, it earned its popularity. Now I'm hoping some company will release the manga in English, because now I want to read it. Hey Crunchyroll! Care to give Bocchi The Rock an English dub and blu-ray release anytime soon? Because I'd love to own it!

 

[Juliko]

So...my Popolocrois review was foreshadowing for this one! I started this review on March 8th, 2023, but finished it today.

Rating: 80/100

My history with the Popolocrois franchise is a bit odd. I first heard about it through the 1998 anime, which was a sequel to a PS1 game that came out in 1996. The original game series and its many sequels didn't come to the US because at the time they came out, America was leaning hard into more gritty, realistic looking 3D graphics over cutesy 2D games. Two of the Popolocrois games would eventually come to the US...on the PSP, and mashed together into one game by way of cutting out a lot of important content from both games. Yeah, whoever decided that was a good idea should bathe in sulfiric acid. Luckily, the two Popolocrois anime would receive fansubs courtesy of the man who would go on to found XSEED Games, which in 2016 finally managed to license, translate, and put out a Popolocrois game in the US, called Return To Popolocrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale. Now, I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who hasn't played the original games—but did read up on some details about them—but has seen the entirety of the 1998 anime.

Which is actually somewhat important because every single Popolocrois game, this one included, adhere to very specific timelines by way of being direct sequels to the first game. No, seriously, the games all have very strict continuity and expect you to play them in a very specific order. Just look at the TVTropes page for the franchise to see what I mean. Hell, that page specifically says that Return to Popolocrois takes place right in the beginning of Popolocrois Monogatari II. That being said, Return to Popolocrois does have a short narrated montage in the beginning that explains who the characters are, how they came to be where they are now, and so on, so the game is friendly to newbies regardless of whether you've played the previous games or not, so you won't be thrown into the game completely blind. But what's the story for just this game, you ask? The kingdom of Popolocrois is celebrating Prince Pietro's 13th birthday, and before the celebrations start, a mysterious woman named Marmela, claiming to be an ambassador from a world called Galariland, wishes to acquaint herself with him. But as it turns out, she whisks Pietro to the now destroyed Galariland, with plans to envelop Popolocrois in darkness and feed it to her master, Lord Gryphot. Thankfully, Pietro makes it to Galariland in one piece, and he tries to find a way to return to Popolocrois and save it from Marmela while helping the citizens of Galariland, procuring all manner of new friends and allies along the way.

Don't come into this game expecting hyperrealistic AAA graphics, because Popolocrois as a franchise wears its chibi-esque character designs proudly. Barring a select few characters like White Knight and GamiGami, every character has round features and eyes with nothing but triangles in them. This game is pretty respectful to the series' overall style, bright and colorful, with the graphics doing the same, and run pretty well on a 3DS. One feature I admittedly thought was kinda unnecessary is that the game lets you get rid of the black outlines around the characters' 3D models. But I prefer keeping them on because without them, the characters look really off. Luckily this is optional, so you don't have to do so. The game also gives you the choice to toggle the random encounter rate, which I thought was pretty interesting. The battles are turn-based ones, with the characters moving across grids that showcase their range of movement, which is a product of the earlier games, though that winds up being kind of arbitrary after a while. The game itself runs pretty well on the 3DS, and I didn't notice any obvious glitches, frame rate drops, or graphical issues. Of course, the 2D cut scenes are all beautifully animated. The farming segments themselves...are very simplified compared to the Story of Seasons games. Growing crops doesn't really do anything for you other than being a way to make money, and you unlock more crops as you progress through the story. Unlike the SoS games, there are no crop/livestock festivals, nor is there stuff like fertilizer or having to ascertain crop quality. The game is pretty story-driven, with the farming segments being more of a side gig than anything. You're not even allowed to name your livestock, for Pete's sake!

I don't have as much to say on the soundtrack, as I didn't find it too memorable, but it does its job well. I do love the remixed version of the series' famous theme song at the end, though the vocals are really hard to hear. The voice acting in both languages is top notch, and unlike the PSP release of the Popolocrois game that came to North America, there weren't any alterations or censorship applied to the North American release of Return to Popolocrois. Thank goodness for that. One thing does confuse me, though: The game actually has two Japanese tracks, both of which are pretty much the same, except one cast has Pietro and Narcia played by the VAs who voiced them in the 1998 anime—Ai Orikasa and Yuri Shiratori, respectively—and the other track has Pietro voiced by Maaya Sakamoto and Narcia voiced by Ayako Kawasumi. Uhh...why? Why keep the cast the same for both tracks but recast the leads? This is weird because there's no real reason to recast them, especially since Ai-san and Yuri-san got to reprise their roles. I guess I should be glad that they did offer the two Japanese audio tracks at all, because it'd be pretty cruel to have brought in their regular seiyuu only to replace them later on for seemingly no reason. Though then again, even the 1996 video game had an entirely different voice cast for them compared to later stuff, so what do I know?

The characters are where things start to get murky. For anyone playing this but haven't seen or played any other Popolocrois media, the characters we follow adhere to typical kids anime tropes—the kind young hero, the sweet natured love interest, the hammy Saturday morning cartoon villain, and the noble knight—and remain that way throughout the game, so it seems like Pietro and his gang don't have much in the way of depth or nuance to them, which is a fair assumption to make. But keep in mind, I've not only seen the entirety of the 1998 anime, which actually fleshes out and develops the characters, making them more three-dimensional and interesting, but seen some tidbits of the original game online, which actually shows the characters—Pietro especially—having to not only face their flaws, but the consequences of their actions. Granted, the original PS1 game never got an official translation, and while an English fan patch for the game has been made, there isn't enough in-depth information about the story of the games unless you play it, and nobody's posted a full Let's Play of the English patch anywhere, either. Granted, a lot of the depth and experience Pietro and his friends gain doesn't really carry into Return to Popolocrois, and the game itself doesn't make any references to previous events in any way, so it's not like the game is inaccessible to newcomers. This is a hybrid RPG/farming simulator game, after all. But for anyone who hasn't played the original Popolocrois games, or the 1998 anime, which showcase the group's changes and growth, their depictions in Return to Popolocrois may make them come off as rather bland, kiddy, and stereotypical. The new characters such as Nino and Rue don't get this treatment, as they're exclusive to this game, so they actually get to evolve and develop. I'm probably biased here, as I still love Pietro and his gang dearly, having seen their depictions in the 1998 anime, and I still love them here, even if they're more simplified.

That being said, there is one aspect about the characters that I felt was a little tacked on. You know how in other Harvest Moon/Rune Factory games, you're given the option to pursue romantic partners, get married, and have children with them? Pietro already has a girlfriend, so he can't do that, but Return To Popolocrois does allow Pietro to befriend five girls that live across the various towns he visits. You give them gifts and have friendly conversations with them, but that's really as far as it goes, and the only rewards you get from maxing out their friendship is benefits for your farm, such as increasing the growth rate/yield for your crops or mining better ore. The character of Leila is the most useful, as you can easy buy her favorite gift and max out her affection easily, and maxing out her friendship allows your farm to give you more crops per yield rather than one at a time. But the female NPCs Pietro befriends don't really contribute to the story beyond that, and I wish the game had allowed them to even join your party and fight in battle in some way. Other than liking Pietro and their other singular character trait, the female NPCs we befriend are pretty bland and one-note. The villains are also full-on evil and came straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, with no attempts to humanize them.

Plus, the story itself is yet another save the world plot involving renewing McGuffins, so Return to Popolocrois as a game really isn't breaking any new ground. I personally don't mind that, as the Popolocrois franchise as a whole as always tried to be idealistic and positive, even during its darker moments. Furthermore, the game itself is pretty short. You can beat the main campaign within 20 hours if you don't do the sidequests or eschew grinding. With all this in mind, you're probably thinking this is a bad game that only kids should play. Well, I don't think so. Even with all my critiques for the game, I still enjoyed Return To Popolocrois as a whole, even if a lot of said enjoyment comes from having seen other parts of the franchise previously. The game is laid-back, joyful, and fun, and perfect if you're looking to just kick back and relax for a bit. I don't consider it to be as good as the 1998 anime, but it doesn't need to be like the anime. Every entry in the Popolocrois franchise has things its good at, and Return To Popolocrois is good at just being a sweet, relaxing game that harkens back to nostalgic cartoons and having that bit of rustic charm to it. Plus, even with the advent of the 3DS eShop's closure, Return To Popolocrois is easy to acquire, and cartridges of it are being sold online for pretty cheap, and there's no DLC either. So whether you're a seasoned Popolocrois fan or no, I think Return To Popolocrois is a fun time that absolutely deserves more love than it gets.

 

[Juliko]

I started writing this review on June 26th, 2022, but only just finished it today.

Rating: 78/100

If you had told me three years ago that I'd actually watch a Love Live season, I probably would have called you insane. Yet here I am having watched three Love Live seasons, one of which is a sequel and the subject of today's review. Long story short, I watched the first season of the Love Live Nijigasaki anime on a whim and wound up liking it a lot, moreso upon finding out it finally ditched a certain trope that I outright hate that was present in the original series and Sunshine. When season two was announced, I was hyped as hell, and I liked Love Live Superstar as well, though not quite as much. It helps that the second season of Love Live Superstar is going to air right after this. But that's another review for another day. So how did Nijigasaki's season two fare? Well...sequels have it rough. To quote another reviewer I know, if they change too much they risk losing their audience, but if they change too little, then the audience will grow bored. It doesn't help that the mobile game's second season is pretty infamous for being flat-out terrible from a writing and narrative standpoint. Then again, the first season did a lot to improve on most of the characters in the game, so surely the second season did the same, right? Yes, to an extent, but while I do love Nijigasaki's second season, it's not without its issues.

Hot off the success of their first School Idol Festival, the school idol club is fired up and have decided to try their hand at setting up a second idol festival, with the help of the new student council president Shioriko Mifune. Plus, now that Yu is taking music composition classes, she's excited to see where this new direction takes her. Things get a little spicy when an ambitious transfer student, Lanzhu Zhong, decides to become a solo school idol and tells the school idol club that their way of doing things isn't right in her eyes, with her friend Mia Taylor making her music. Will Lanzhu dethrone the Nijigasaki school idol club as the newest hot thing, or will the club be able to win her over with the power of friendship and music?

So like I mentioned before, I've never played any of the Love Live mobile games, nor do I have any plans to. But I did do some research and apparently the character of Lanzhu and her writing in the game were pretty poorly received, mainly because she debuted as a super petty, relentlessly self-centered alpha bitch who was needlessly cruel to the girls, but the other characters kept shilling her as this awesome person who deserves the world. Later chapters would try to make her nicer, but with haphazard results that felt more like it was just trying to recon her earlier behavior rather than actually having her own up to her earlier actions. While I can understand having some drama in the Love Live franchise to spice things up, there are definitely better ways the game could have integrated Lanzhu into the series or even tackled her narrative arc. The anime, true to its mission of rectifying issues the game had, doubled down on fixing Lanzhu's overall character, as she comes off as more of a friendly rival to the girls rather than a straight up bitch, with her actions being not as openly malicious or adversarial as they were in the game. Thank God for that. This also extends to the characters of Mia and Shioriko, who were also more adversarial in the game, though not to the same extent Lanzhu was, and being made significantly nicer in the anime.

As much as I appreciate the anime's attempts to introduce new characters into the fold though, it does result in the cast being rather bloated. There are now a total of 13 main characters in the Nijigasaki anime, in a 13 episode anime. Having new characters come into the limelight does wind up resulting in a few of the other characters being relegated to the background and not having much development as a result, which is an issue that's been pretty common with Love Live anime in general. Granted, many of the Nijigasaki girls already received time in the limelight in the first series, but several of them could have benefited from having more time to show what they're like outside of the club, examples being Karin, Emma, and Kasumi. Even a lot of the new characters they introduce, such as the idols from other schools, are only there to either help with the idol festival, or in the case of the Kurobane sisters, a random Deus Ex Machina to progress the plot when the creators write themselves in a corner. Juggling too many characters in a short time frame doesn't allow them much time to grow or evolve. Though it's still better about it than the trash heap that was Lapis Re:Lights, that's for sure.

There isn't much to say on the animation or music front, as they're both the same as the first season, and the quality is consistent across both seasons. There aren't as many songs in this season as there were in season one, and some of the ones briefly used in the final episode were songs taken straight from the game. They're still very well sung and well made though, with Stars We Chase being my favorite among them. Plus, the story here is a lot less episodic compared to the first season, for those who felt like the first season didn't come into its own until the finale. But not every episode sticks the landing. One episode shows Ayumu, Yu, Shizuku, and Setsuna hanging out together, and at one point, they all put on an impromptu play...which winds up not panning out, and the circumstances that prompt three of the girls to form their group A-ZU-NA feel really contrived. But those were really the only episodes that I felt didn't really hold up. So yeah, while Nijigasaki season 2 isn't as good as the first season I feel, it still has a lot to offer, even if its buckles under the weight of its expanded cast and a few haphazard writing decisions.

 

[toastghost]

while love live isn't exactly the most sophisticated franchise and the writing does tend to rely on tropes a lot, it's a series very dear to my heart and i think the nijigasaki series is its absolute best.

 

[Juliko]

This review was written on March 23rd, 2023.

Rating: 74/100

As of today, I've gotten through quite a few Fire Emblem games, with varying degrees of completion. I've played the NES Switch port of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, and the subject of today's review, Fire Emblem Engage, to completion. I'm halfway through both Three Houses and Sacred Stones, started Awakening and Fates, but haven't finished them yet. I originally wasn't going to play Engage because the commercials for it made it seem like a console gacha game with monetary microtransactions, though that turned out to not be the case. What clinched the deal was finding out one of my favorite newer voice actors was going to play one of the characters, so...yeah. I know, I'm shallow like that. It turned out to be money well spent, as I found Fire Emblem Engage to be pretty fun, though not without its issues.

In the continent of Elyos, four kingdoms waged war against the nefarious Fell Dragon and sealed him away with the help of heroes from other worlds. However, a thousand years have since passed, and the seal is weakening. In the midst of all this, the Divine Dragon and main protagonist (Whose official name is Alear, but I named them Nilou in my playthrough), awakens without their memories. Now Alear must recruit allies and seek out the Emblem Rings needed to call forth the otherworldly warriors once again. If you're thinking this is going to be anything like Three Houses, you'd best throw those expectations out the window, because Engage pretty much goes back to FE's roots as being a rather rote Good VS Evil story complete with the power of friendship winning the day. Plus, Engage was clearly made as an anniversary title meant to celebrate the series' 30th anniversary, which would've been in 2020, but...well, COVID happened, along with not wanting to clash with other games coming out—mainly Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes and Xenoblade Chronicles 3—so it wound up getting released in 2023, three years after its intended release year. Yes, I agree that Engage is VERY cheesy, very cliche, and a lot of stuff it's done has been done before and better not just in other things, but even in other FE games that came out before it. Engage isn't exactly original.

That being said, I honestly don't think this makes Engage a bad game. For one, Engage wholly embraces its cheesiness and Saturday morning cartoon-like sensibilities, even in its darker moments, so it's not like Engage is trying to be something it isn't. Secondly, yes, I agree that Alear's dual-colored hair is kind of ridiculous, but it's not nearly as ridiculous as other stuff I've seen. Plus, Alear's dual-colored hair actually has an in-story reason for being what it is, so it's not like it's thrown in there because the creators think it looks cool. Furthermore, while Engage's characters aren't nearly as fleshed out and three-dimensional as those from Awakening or Three Houses, I still found them to be fairly enjoyable, and many supports between certain characters are actually pretty sweet and genuine, going in directions I didn't quite expect, but in a good way. I do agree that several characters could have received more development, but they're better executed than other stuff I've seen that tackles the same character archetypes pretty poorly, especially in recent years. Looking at you, Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure. Yes, a lot of the supports and the overall tone of the game are lighter and more comedic, but some people might appreciate a return to form after Three Houses' more dark and morally complex tone. They're certainly not offensively bad, I can tell you that much.

From a gameplay standpoint, Engage really went all out. Basically, giving your characters Emblems allows them to acquire the abilities from said Emblem if you use them enough, and since there's so many Emblems, the game encourages all sorts of experimentation by trying out different character-and-ring combinations, as units will perform significantly differently depending on which rings the player chooses to give them. While the whole Bond Fragments thing does make the game come off like a gacha game, they're very easy to acquire and there's lots of different ways to get them. The maps and their designs are a lot more diverse, and I especially liked the Somniel and all the activities you could unlock there, like the arena and gathering items from animals you adopt for your farm. I kind of wish they did more with stuff like the farm, like growing crops Harvest Moon style or actually raising the animals you adopt...and I will admit, I didn't like the fishing mini game. It was way too tedious and annoying, and prefer how Three Houses executed the fishing mechanic. Speaking of tedious and annoying, why the hell is actual money so hard to get in this game?! The only good ways to get money are progressing through the story and receiving military funds from the four kingdoms when you clear their stories, and the game expects you to use it on stuff like donating to the four kingdoms, which, require a ludicrous amount of money if you want to get them to their highest levels. Plus, donating to the various countries isn't really worth it because all it does is net you stuff that you can easily access later on anyway, barring some in-game costumes. The only other clear-cut ways to make money are to fight gold corrupted in the skirmishes and to beef up Anna's luck stat and abuse her passive ability when using her in battle, and even that's not a guarantee. And did I forget to mention that the skirmish levels scale as you level up Alear, making them a lot harder than needed? Good luck trying to level up your weaker units! Even on easy mode, Engage isn't exactly merciful towards the newbies unless you know what you're doing.

On the technical side of things, the graphics themselves are the best Fire Emblem has ever looked on the Switch. The in-game sprites are very expressive without ever leaning into uncanny valley territory, the backgrounds are well rendered, and the battle choreography is very fluid. The developers even said that they put special attention into showing the characters deflecting their enemies attacks, such as parrying and dodging. The only real issue with the graphics is that there's a LOT of clipping. Seriously, characters' hair or accessories phase through their bodies a lot. This isn't an uncommon issue with a lot of similar games that came out previously, but it's pretty prevalent in Engage, unfortunately. And no, I don't consider the character designs to be that over-the-top, especially not Alear's. I've seen a lot weirder character designs than Engage. Honestly, I have more of an issue with Hortensia's character design than Alear's. Then again, I don't like Hortensia in general, mainly because she looks like the offspring of Pinkie Pie, Harley Quinn, and the clowns from Little Clowns of Happytown, and I think her outfit looks really stupid. Not only that, her voice is annoying AF to listen to, and I'm not solely referring to her English dub voice, her Japanese voice is just as grating! Granted, neither her English or Japanese voice reach the levels of the auditory nightmare that is Misaki Kuno, but borders dangerously close. I also don't like Goldmary as a character, either. Seriously, game, why are you expecting me to like a super self-centered character who constantly demands that people praise her to the heavens just because she exists? Uh, no thanks.

Speaking of characters and their outfits, there is one feature that I wish Engage had retained from Three Houses, but for some reason limited to the Somniel: Changing the characters' outfits. Engage does have this feature, yes, but for some reason, somebody decided to only let you customize their outfits in the Somniel. Even if you change their outfits, they keep their regular battle outfits whenever you're on the world map or playing through cutscenes. This kinda pisses me off because I personally prefer some characters' casual outfits over their regular battle attire (Again, Hortensia is one such example for me), and it sucks that the game doesn't allow the characters to wear other costumes outside the Somniel. Three Houses actually lets you change the characters' outfits and keeps them on when they're in battle if you so choose! Granted, I learned that feature wasn't implemented in 3H until later, but still! Yes, I know this is a petty thing to be salty about. But why even put character customization in your game if you're only going to limit it to just one place?

Alright, better get off that soapbox. I don't want to end this review on a negative note, so I'll talk about some other positives. The soundtrack is a lot of fun, and contains some pretty nifty remixes of previous Fire Emblem themes, some of which you can access during the Paralogue battles. And yes, the opening theme song as cheesy as hell, both the English and Japanese versions, but I don't care. They're both awesomely sung and encapsulate what Engage is going for as a game. On the subject of audio, the English dub for Engage is absolutely fantastic. All the voices match the characters perfectly, and what little changes are made actually add to some characters' personalities and overall characterization. Pandreo's howling gimmick is a hoot. BTW, Megan Taylor Harvey absolutely needs to play more villain roles, because her take on evil Veyle absolutely knocked it out of the park. I love her cutesy uwu moe girl voice as much as the next guy (Especially since I mainly know her for Kamichu and Rune Factory 5), but her evil Veyle is on another level, and I'm so glad she's coming into the limelight these days, and I'm sure Engage might have propelled her more into the public eye.

Overall, while Fire Emblem Engage is certainly no Three Houses, why should it be? It's not going to bring the house down, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Engage knows what it is and is content to have fun with itself. I know I certainly had fun playing it, and I'm eagerly awaiting the Fell Xenologue, too. I certainly enjoy Engage a lot more that the mess that is Fire Emblem Fates, that's for sure.

 

[Juliko]

Hooo boy! I wanted to talk about this series for years, and now I can finally do so! I originally reviewed this on April 23rd, 2011, but I decided to make a new review, which I just finished today. Hey, the same day I wrote my old review! 12 years ago! Imagine that!

Rating: 95/100

The year was 2007. It was around that time that I was really starting to dip my toes deeper into the anime fandom beyond just Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, or whatever was airing on TV. I was browsing some anime websites, and a promo picture for a new anime called Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette caught my eye. It looked interesting and I wanted to watch it...but at the time, little to no fansubs for it existed, and the few people that saw the anime hated it, dismissing it as a watered down version of the original novel right out of the gate. Back then, I wasn't familiar with the original Victor Hugo novel Les Miserables, but I watched the few episodes that received subs and I liked it a lot. But Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette wouldn't receive completed fansubs until 2011 (Thanks, Licca Fansubs!!), around the time I started college. During that time, I learned that Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette was actually made as an attempt to revive the World Masterpiece Theater franchise, which was notable for adapting Western children's novels into Japanese animation, from the early 70s up to 1997, then from 2007-2009. Unfortunately, the attempt to revive WMT failed, and since Konnichiwa Anne ended, no new WMT anime have been made. Which is a damn shame in my opinion, because as of this writing, I've seen a good majority of the WMT, this anime included. While I do consider Dog of Flanders to be better, I'm thankful that I got to watch Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette, because it introduced me to the WMT as a whole and was one of the anime that helped refine my personal tastes. And because, honestly? Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette is pretty damn amazing. I did review this when the fansubs finished, but looking back, my old review for it is pretty overly fangirly and not up to standard with how my reviews are now, so I'm writing a new one.

While the marketing does place quite a bit of focus on Cosette, and a majority of the series is told from her point of view, the anime does follow the same story beats as the book. Set in nineteenth century-era France, the series begins with Cosette, a three-year-old girl, traveling with her mother Fantine, who is trying to find a job and a place to live, but have always been shunned away due to few employers hiring single mothers. When her mother is promised with the prosperity of working in the big city, Cosette is separated from her in the hopes a caretaker named Thénardier will watch over her while her mother earns some money. Unfortunately, this was a trick and the caretaker is a corrupt man who makes Cosette his slave, and she is subject to their abuse every day. The city Fantine works at is famous for its kindly mayor, Monsieur Madeleine, but what nobody knows is that his real name is Jean Valjean, a former convict who served 19 years in prison, only changing his ways after a bishop is kind to him. When circumstances put Fantine in dire straits, Jean Valjean promises to save Cosette from the Thenardiers so she can have a life. But Valjean is being pursued by the stoic, determined Inspector Javert, a member of the Paris police force who steadfastly holds the "once a criminal, always a criminal" mindset and wants to throw Valjean back into prison by any means necessary.

Now, if you're thinking Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette is a dumbed down, heavily sanitized, kiddyfied version of the novel akin to G3 My Little Pony, you'd best throw that expectation out the window, because other than removing the heavier stuff such as Fantine going into prostitution and Javert's suicide (Which I'm pretty sure is because Japan considers it taboo to depict suicide in children's programming), the anime is actually pretty faithful to the book. Probably more so than other adaptations I know of, such as the 1935 and 1998 movies. Several important characters do die in the later half of the anime, and very few get spared. It pulls no punches in its depiction of the June Rebellion arc or the abuse various characters are made to endure. Plus, several characters who don't get a lot of development in the book or whose fates were left ambiguous are not only more fleshed out here, but even receive happier outcomes. To be honest, I'm kind of glad the anime decided to try and be both fairly light and dark, because leaning too much into the darker elements of the book might have made it come across as too edgy. Plus, just because the anime adds a lot more happier moments, including making the ending more hopeful than the book was, that doesn't necessarily mean none of them were poorly written or felt unearned, because in my opinion, I think they work wonderfully within the context of the anime as a whole.

From a technical standpoint, the animation is really good. Not just in terms of its overall presentation, but because of just how different it looks compared to WMT's previous output. Because it was made in the middle of the digital era, Nippon Animation was able to do more with the character designs, backgrounds, and settings that it couldn't back when they were still active. Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette has a much glossier, more refined look about it compared to previous shows' more rustic, rougher outputs, though that's not to say their older shows weren't good. The designs of female characters such as Cosette, Fantine, Eponine, and so on do look a bit more reminiscent of modern anime girls, with big eyes and glossy hair, but like with all of WMT shows before it, there's zero cartoony exaggeration. No chibi faces, no veins popping outside their heads, etc, which is a rule the WMT has always followed for all their shows. The male characters also manage to toe the line between being cartoony and realistic, with more emphasis on the latter without clashing with the show's tone. The actual character motion ranges from being slow to fluid depending on the scene, and it's always remained consistent throughout. The backgrounds are detailed and nicely rendered, and Nippon's depiction of France in the early 19th century is pretty spot-on from what I can see. Admittedly, I don't have as much to say about the soundtrack, as again, it's been years since I've seen the Les Mis anime, but I remember liking it, and both theme songs by Yuki Saitou are beautifully sung and fit the feel of the show perfectly.

If there's one thing the WMT is really good at across most, if not all their series, it's fleshing out their characters and making them as interesting and three-dimensional as humanly possible, and Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette is no different. The reason this is so is because the WMT series in general puts a lot of emphasis on build-up, which since most WMT series have 40-50 episodes, they're actually allowed to do more than what 13-26 episode series allow them to do, and actually having it pay off. A lot of said build-up in here consists of the creators fleshing out the characters, bringing the best out of them, and moving the story forward. Every single character, from Cosette, Jean Valjean, Marius, Eponine, Gavroche, and even all the men in the Les Amis, is well developed, interesting, and three-dimensional, each with their own roles to play in the grand epic that is Les Miserables. For anybody who felt that Eponine didn't have much in the way of screen time in the book or in the various other adaptations, don't worry, she gets a lot to do here, both as a kid and as an adult. Basically, Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette has an awesome cast of characters that are portrayed extremely well here, differences from the book notwithstanding, and even with the anime's lighter, more kid-friendly tone, they still retain the depth and nuances they had from the book.

I personally didn't have much in the way of complaints about the anime myself, though this is because I haven't read the book yet. I know a lot of people will take issue with the anime removing the heavier elements of the book, like Fantine going into prostitution and Javert's suicide, which is valid, and there are no shortage of adaptations that retain those two things. But I don't think those are reason enough to completely dismiss the anime as a whole. Plus, the first 13 or so episodes can be a bit of a climb, as they focus a lot on Cosette living with the Thenardiers, and it's fairly slow paced, even though I think both are done really well considering how long the anime actually is (52 episodes). If you can get past the slow pacing and the removal of the heavier, darker parts, Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette is an excellently written series from beginning to end, and now that the series has complete English fansubs, it's a lot easier to watch and access! There are also two manga adaptations of Les Miserables, both of which are more faithful to the book's tone and keep the parts that the anime removed: The 2011 manga by Takahiro Arai, which Seven Seas is releasing in the US right now, and the 2015 manga by Udon Entertainment, and while the latter is shorter than the former, I think both manga are awesome recreations of the epic that is Les Miserables, even if Arai's version has the benefit of being much longer, and therefore able to cover the entire story. Say what you will about Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette being happier and lighter than the source material, IMHO it's a way better adaptation than the 2012 musical movie ever was, mainly for the fact that it DOESN'T have useless, unnecessarily gross scenes like Thenardier urinating in a guy's beer cup and a random inn patron having sex with Santa Claus that were clearly thrown in there just for pointless shock humor! Seriously, whoever decided filming those scenes for the 2012 movie should never work in the film industry ever again!!

So yeah, I love Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette. I have a strong attachment to this anime, and it's one of my favorite series of all time. It has great characters, a realistic yet exciting storyline that never goes over-the-top, and it is an utter shame that the WMT revival never got off the ground, because we need more anime like this that actually care about telling interesting stories and characters you can relate to. This anime also helped me discover a blog that to this day I still visit, and said blog introduced me to a lot more anime I would come to love later in love, so I owe Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette that much. So don't be put off by the anime's lighter tone, because if you want to watch something that's not only full of passion, full of evolving characters and a story that has a lot of care put into it, give Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette a shot. I did and I don't regret it.

(Older review under spoilers. Warning for embarrassing amounts of fangirling)

Spoiler: Old Review

I give this awesome anime a 95/100

In 1862, Victor Hugo published his most famous novel, Les Miserables. Since then, all kinds of adaptations of it appeared throughout history, from the famous musical to this underrated anime here. Les Miserables is considered one of the best 19th century novels ever. In 2007, Nippon Animation decided to make an anime version of Les Miserables, the promotional art of which is shown above. This is part of the World Masterpiece Theater, an anime staple that showcased anime versions of famous 19th-20th century children's novels such as Anne of Green Gables and Pollyanna.

Basically this anime is about Cosette and her mother, Fantine, trying to find a home in a poverty-stricken France. Fantine has to leave Cosette with innkeepers called Thenardier in order to do her job at a factory. However, the Thenardiers are actually cruel and abusive toward Cosette and treat her like a slave. Also, an ex-convict named Jean Valjean tries to restart his life and help people, but is pursued by the policeman Javert. Both them, and many others, have to deal with the harshness of society and an uncaring French government.

I love historical anime based on 19th-20th century children's novels, and this is my second favorite out of all of them. It's also #10 on my top 20 favorite anime. The novel is also one of the most loved pieces of work ever. And yet...why do so many people give it the cold shoulder and don't give it a chance? The answer is as simple as you can make it: it's too "kid-friendly". Cosette (along with other children portrayed in the show) are drawn to look cute and innocent, Fantine never goes into prostitution, and characters that originally died in the novel actually live on in the anime. Sure, Nippon Animation did make the anime look a bit more acceptable to younger viewers, but does it really look like a water-downed kiddie show like most people claim it is? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

Sure, Nippon Animation did change some things to make it kid-friendly, but I say this: SO WHAT!? Let me say this: this anime does not totally shy away from the hardships that Cosette and Fantine endure, other character deaths (including one particular important one that Les Miserables fans might be happy about), and the cold, merciless harshness that comes from living an impoverished lifestyle. I think this is what the anime does best. Portraying people, particularly children with good hearts, who get totally crapped on by life, particularly in hard times. Even so, this anime is actually the most faithful adaptation of the novel I've seen. Of course, I haven't particularly read the novel, but in 8th grade my music class saw a bit of the musical on DVD.

Don't judge this anime by its looks. It may look like a botched-up adaptation of Hugo's famous novel, but believe you me this is a unspoiled, polished gem in the form of a masterpiece. If you think you're not going to like this, AT LEAST watch episodes 39 to 44. Those are the best ones! ESPECIALLY episode 41 (there's 52 episodes to this anime)! You'll be very surprised. This is one of my favorite anime and I truly feel it deserves more recognition than it's getting now. Thankfully a fansubbing group that I love completed the entire series recently, so everyone can see it subbed now!

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

What shocked me most about this one is the fact that it got 52 episodes, actually! I had to read that twice, haha… unless your name is OLM or Toei, your anime is in all likelihood not getting even half of that number right out of the gate today, haha. I kind of miss the days where at least 26-episode anime were more common, actually, and 52 episodes are especially great for adaptations of especially epic source material like what we have here with this anime! Would this make it the longest adaptation of the story, I wonder? 52 full-length anime episodes equals anywhere between 20 and 22 hours worth of content here…

 

[Juliko]

Would this make it the longest adaptation of the story, I wonder? 52 full-length anime episodes equals anywhere between 20 and 22 hours worth of content here…

Not sure. I haven't seen any other Les Mis adaptations. But I would argue it probably is.

I kind of miss the days where at least 26-episode anime were more common, actually, and 52 episodes are especially great for adaptations of especially epic source material like what we have here with this anime!

Yeah, especially since anime that had that many episodes could devote time to everything from developing characters further to fleshing out their worlds.

Hey, more book reviews!

The Summer of June by Jamie Sumner
Rating: 7/10
This was...alright. As somebody who has anxiety, the book did depict it fairly well, the main characters were decent, and the prose was pretty good, too. But I couldn't help but feel like something was missing. There was also one subplot about June trying to make her Mom not date a man that gets no resolution, and two characters who are just there to be bullies and just disappear afterward. I feel like more could have been done with this. But it's still a nice book, if not very memorable.

Matilda by Roald Dahl
Rating: 7/10
Ah, Matilda. I remember seeing the movie quite a few times, and I did get around to reading the book later on. For the most part, this is a pretty fun and comedic, if somewhat over-the-top and silly children's novel. I do wish the villains had a bit more depth to them, as here everybody that hates Matilda—her parents and Miss Trunchbull—all act like they came straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and don't have much in the way of humanizing qualities. Plus, I wish there was more of an explanation for how Matilda got her powers, as they seem to come out of nowhere and feel like a Deus Ex Machina so she can magically solve her problems. And that's not even getting into Dahl's pretty blatant anti-TV bias. Eh, Matilda is cute for what it is.

Star in the Forest by Laura Resau
Rating: 6/10
A book about a girl from an undocumented Mexican immigrant family whose father has been deported and befriends a white dog whom she names Star. Eh, this book was cute, and it's certainly bold to tackle topics such as deportation and what it does to immigrant families. I think it tackles those subjects tastefully since they're seen from a child's point of view, though I'm not Mexican myself, so I can't comment on its authenticity. But something about this didn't really click with me. I think the whole spirit animal thing is a bit odd with how its used in the narrative, and Zitlally initially starts off as pretty judgmental of Crystal at first, and even after they become friends, we never learn why Crystal lies. I wish that had been elaborated on more. Definitely appreciate the Spanish glossary at the end!

Where The Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin
Rating: 8.5/10
Now this was a really cute book! A story about a young girl who embarks on a journey to find an entity who has the power to make her impoverished mountain prosperous again. The prose, while definitely aimed at children, is fairly engaging without sacrificing description, the characters are fun and well developed, the moral is delivered nicely without being condescending, and I liked the way the authoress basically used both Chinese myths and tropes from other famous stories like Wizard of Oz and Alice In Wonderland to create a setting that actually feels like her own creation. But as much as I like the stories she inserts and their importance to what's going on in the narrative, I think sometimes they break up the flow of the actual story at times. But the story itself is very nice, and a good fantasy story to read to children. Oh, and the illustrations are amazing. Need I say more?

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
Rating: 6.5/10
The famous short story about giving and what's most important on the holidays. This alright. It is a short story, so it doesn't get to do much with its characters and the plot is very simple too. The message of the story is obviously important, and the fact that most peoples' money goes towards rent and mortgage, inflation aside, is still relevant even today. But I didn't find myself getting too attached to this and think it's just average.

And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer by Fredrik Backman
Rating: 8.5/10
One of my online friends recommended this to me, as she's a huge fan of Fredrick Backman. While I'm not entirely familiar with Swedish novels, I really liked this one, more so now that I actually experienced watching my grandmother lose her memories before losing her entirely. The prose was pretty nice, and the translation of it is solid from what I can tell. The characters are well developed without the writing relying on over-explaining things, and it has a bittersweet, melancholy atmosphere which is fitting for the book's narrative, which focuses on an old man dealing with dementia before his death. I do think the ending was a little abrupt, but this book is nice and sweet. Thanks for recommending this to me, Armitage!

 

[LightningTopaz]

I may have to see if my local library has "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon"--that sounds like it would be right up my alley, even if it's intended for kids.

 

[Juliko]

Just finished this review on April 30th, 2023.

Rating: 88/100

In 2010, I watched an old anime that Anime News Network happened to start streaming called Ie Naki Ko, based on a French novel which was about a boy who traveled with an old minstrel in order to escape being sold off into slavery. I thought the anime was amazing and it's still one of my favorites. But the 1977 Ie Naki Ko anime was only one anime that the late great director Osamu Dezaki worked on, alongside his team, among many, many others that would continue until his untimely death in 2011. I've seen a few of the anime he worked on, with Rose of Versailles being my favorite for obvious reasons, and just recently I finished an anime that he worked on just a year after Ie Naki Ko included, another adventure anime based on a Western novel. I will admit, the only reason I even decided to watch Treasure Island was because Discotek picked it up for a blu-ray release in the US fairly recently, the first time it ever got licensed here, and I checked it out to see if it was any good. I'm certainly glad I did, and I still continue to be surprised at how anime, even in its relative infancy, was able to churn out genuinely awesome creations that you just don't get anymore. Granted, I still like Versailles and Ie Naki Ko better than Treasure Island, but seriously, TI is a damn good anime in and of itself that you should really check out if you want a fun, tense, swashbuckling adventure that isn't afraid to get dark when it needs to.

Based on the 1883 novel by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stephenson, Treasure Island stars Jim Hawkins, an energetic 13-year-old boy who helps his mother run the Admiral Benbow Inn on England's Bristol Channel. His life is fairly normal until a pirate by the name of Billy Bones stays at the inn. Billy Bones is a drunkard who is always causing trouble, but when sober, he's paranoid that he's being followed. After several events involving violent sword fights, Billy Bones dies, leaving Jim his most prized possession: A map that supposedly leads to Treasure Island, where the famous Captain Flint hid a mountain of treasure so sought-after that nearly every pirate wants to get their hands on it no matter the cost. Jim wants to get in on the action and find this fabled treasure, wanting to be a sailor like his father once was. With help from some friends of his late father, Jim manages to get a spot on the ship named The Hispaniola and has a chance to find the treasure. But he is woefully unprepared for all that sailing the high seas come with, like dealing with low food supplies, in-fighting amongst the sailors, pirates, betrayal, and if the treasure is even real to begin with.

While it has been a decade since I've seen Ie Naki Ko (I really need to rewrite my review of it), I do remember a lot of details about it, and since Treasure Island was made right after Remi ended, comparisons to it are inevitable, both in terms of their animation and their approaches to storytelling. I adore Remi to death, but if there's one thing I really didn't like about the 1977 anime, its the narrator, or rather, the anime's overusage of him. Seriously, the narrator in that show not only talks through a good majority of every single episode, there are several moments where said narrator outright spoils important plot twists long before they get revealed in-universe. It's like the creator didn't trust the viewers to figure things out themselves, even when the show had an episode where characters find out about the truth behind Remi's real parentage, which the 1997 series remedied by cutting out the narrator completely. It seems like even Dezaki realized this and toned down the narration a LOT in Treasure Island. Granted, there's still narration in every episode, but the narrator is Jim this time around, which makes sense as this is his story and it's framed as him telling his mother about his adventures, and luckily, the narration doesn't spoil important plot twists or completely take over the story this time. Thank God!

Unlike Remi, which had 52 episodes to tell its story, Treasure Island only has 26, which in my opinion wound up being the perfect length for it. TI is made into two arcs, with the first half focusing on Jim and his team simply getting to Treasure Island and all that sailing across the sea entails, and the second half being about them surviving on the island and their ongoing conflict with the pirates. I do want to say, if there's one thing TI as an anime is really good at, its establishing and maintaining tension. The story is constantly moving from one beat to another, with characters' loyalties and motivations either remaining ambiguous or constantly changing, so you never know what's going to happen throughout every episode, and the way TI manages to keep this tension going for its entire run without resorting to cheese, melodrama, or cheap shots is amazing. It did an awesome job at making me feel invested in what was going on and wondering just what was going to happen in the next episode, or even in the very next scene, and it never drags anything out for the sake of unnecessary padding. Not a single moment in TI was wasted, and everything and everyone got their moments to shine.

Another reason why the tension works so well is the cast of characters, all of whom are fun, interesting, and well fleshed out, with each of them serving their own roles in the story and having their own strengths and flaws that make them compelling and fun to follow. One thing I also really appreciate about TI as a series is that the pirates are not only portrayed as being absolutely ruthless, but also extremely smart and cunning. Many stories about pirates tend to make them out to be little more than dumb brutes who only care about treasure and nothing else, and while the pirates in TI also care a lot about finding treasure, they're not made out to be a bunch of brainless buffoons who kill anyone they see. They dedicate a lot of time planning their actions down to the letter and spend a lot of money and resources on trying to pull them off, while trying to make sure Jim and the other good guys don't catch on to their plans. For example, in the second half of the series, Jim and the crew of the Hispaniola stay in a fort on Treasure Island that happens to have a working well. When the pirates try to mess with them by contaminating their water, I was sure they would do something like poison the water supply and straight up kill them off, but instead, they throw the corpses of dead animals into the well, contaminating the water that way with intent to drive them mad or indirectly kill them through dehydration. I admit I haven't read the novel so I can't comment how this plays out in the book, but seriously, considering the novel was the progenitor for all other pirate stories to follow, I'm amazed at how much mileage Stephenson, and by extension the anime team, managed to get out of having the Hispaniola crew and the pirates engage in a battle of wits as well as swords and guns. Tension doesn't always have to come from just fight scenes, and TI absolutely nailed it in my book. Eat your heart out, Fena: Pirate Princess.

Granted, as much as I want to praise TI up the wazoo, it's not without its issues, though they're pretty negligible in the grand scheme of things. For one, the animation for TI's time is pretty good, and at times even improved compared to Remi. Dezaki still gets good mileage out of his usage of water colored freeze frame stills that make scenes look more epic than they are, the backgrounds are realistic yet vividly imaginative and well layered, and the character designs, done by the great Akio Sugino, have this great rustic look about them that really make them look like rugged people and not like your typical anime characters, though I do have to question why they made Jim's design a lot more round and cutesy compared to Remi's more slightly realistic look. Note that Jim's face and nose are much more round and cartoony. There is one thing about Dr. Livesey's design that really bothered me, and I don't know if this was intentional or not, but early in the series, his skin has this really ugly looking beige/green color that makes him look weird. And no, it's not because of the lighting either, for a good majority of the show, his skin looks like a mix of beige and green. It gets better over the course of the series, but I have to question whose bright idea it was to make him look like that in the first place. Furthermore, there are times when a character's hair changes color out of nowhere, and pretty drastically even if it's for just a second. For example, Long John Silver's hair is brown, but in some scenes it looks black, and other scenes randomly change it to blonde, and not because of stuff like him being in front of a campfire. Consistency should not be this hard! But other than those things, the animation is still pretty good for the time, and since TI has a more action-oriented feel to it, the fight choreography is a nice mix of fluid, dynamic movement and quick cuts to characters beating the crap out of each other complete with 70s sound effects.

Speaking of sound, the soundtrack is also surprisingly versatile, with heavy usage of trumpets, electric guitars, drums, and a LOT of 70s electronica that actually manages to work a lot better than you'd expect. Oh, and the opening song is absolutely badass and fits the show to a T. Plus, all the voice actors play their roles wonderfully...though I'm not gonna lie, Mari Shimizu's Jim can get really, really shrill at times, especially when he's angry or yells. Not all the time, thankfully, and she'd get better about this later on, especially when she'd reprise her role as Astro Boy in the 1980 remake of...well, Astro Boy. Plus, as shrill as Mari Shimizu can be, she's nowhere near on the level of the auditory nightmare that is Misaki Kuno. Or the God-awful car alarm/alpaca screams of Susanoo from The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon.

You're probably wondering why I haven't talked much about John Silver, the secondary main character of the series. Don't get me wrong, he's just as interesting and fun to follow as all the other characters are, and is the main driving force behind a good portion of the plot. But I honestly found it really hard to believe that a one-legged man who doesn't even use a peg is capable of pulling off a lot of the feats he does, especially in an era where prothestics didn't exist yet that I know of. Seriously, this guy survives a crap ton of things that literally no human could ever be capable of surviving, and because of this, along with a staggering lack of any real weaknesses, he comes dangerously close to superhuman territory. Plus, I'm sure a lot of people in the modern day will take issue with the fact that a disabled man is portrayed as the villain, even though he's presented as much more complex than that. I kind of wish the anime had taken some time to show him actually struggling more, whether with his disability or grappling with his own faults. That's not to say Silver is a bad character in any way, and I love how the anime really played with the father/son dynamic he had with Jim and the conflicting feelings Jim has about him as a result of his inevitable betrayal. Furthermore, there was one episode that I found hard to take seriously, with said episode involving a ghost ship that kind of felt out of place, considering TI as a show prided itself on being as grounded in reality as possible. Luckily, nothing of that caliber happens again, so it's not a huge issue. Also, several promo pictures show a lady in a veil, including the one I'm using, and taking up a good portion of the poster. Usually that implies said character is going to be important in the show, but if you're convinced she's going to be important, don't get your hopes up. She literally only appears in episode 25 and then never again. False advertising, much?

So yeah, the few flaws it has notwithstanding, I think Treasure Island is a fantastic anime that absolutely deserves to be seen, and now that Discotek Media put it out on Blu-Ray this past March, it's more widely available! Treasure Island is pretty much everything that Fena: Pirate Princess tried to be but couldn't, as the latter thought it could get viewers by throwing in endless fight scenes and a million plotlines without actually developing them or checking if they'd actually work. Treasure Island knew what it wanted to be, had a clear goal in mind, and cared enough about its premise to flesh out its characters and make it exciting. I don't recommend showing it to kids though, because there's quite a lot of violence, death, and uncensored blood in this, along with two instances of Jim drinking alcohol while underage. But seriously, just check out Treasure Island if you want an epic, exciting, tense swashbuckling adventure that'll actually have you at the edge of your seat.

 

[Juliko]

This review was written on December 30th, 2022, the last review I wrote for 2022.

Rating: 78/100

Not gonna mince words here, I feel Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure is one of the most annoying, frustrating, and disappointing Pretty Cure seasons I've ever seen. While I can understand wanting to make a more comedic, light-hearted season after the more emotionally charged Healin Good Pretty Cure, TroPri had absolutely no interest in fleshing out its characters beyond Manatsu or Laura, it took forever to progress its plot in any real way, its villains and their actions weren't threatening which made the series lack any real tension or urgency, and as a result, the fights were as boring as eating lunch. So when the movie was announced, I initially had zero interest in watching it because of how badly the series turned out...until it was revealed that it was going to be a crossover with Heartcatch Pretty Cure, aka my favorite Precure season ever. But having seen the Healin Good movie previously, I was convinced the Heartcatch girls would be reduced to little more than plot devices that appear in two scenes involving fighting alongside the TroPri girls and do nothing else until the plot deemed it convenient, since that's what the Healin Good movie did. So you can imagine that I wasn't exactly looking forward to watching Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure The Movie: The Snow Princess and the Miraculous Ring based on both the series' failings and what the Healin Good movie did with its crossover characters.

I finally got around to watching the movie, and...holy shit, the Tropical Rouge movie actually seemed to go out of its way to not only address most of its parent series' flaws, but the flaws that the Healin Good movie had. How the hell did this movie manage to be better than its own parent series?! The plot isn't even all that groundbreaking if you think about it: The Tropical Club has been invited to a snowy kingdom called Shantia, specifically to attend Princess Sharon's coronation ceremony. Laura has even been invited to sing as part of the festivities, something she's very much looking forward to. While there, the girls tour Shantia and encounter the girls from Heartcatch Pretty Cure, getting acquainted with them before discovering secrets about Sharon and Shantia that put not only their lives, but other townspeople that were invited, in mortal danger. It's up to the Tropical Rouge and Heartcatch girls to put a stop to the evil force that threatens to keep them confined to Shantia for eternity.

God, I am absolutely amazed at how much Toei seemed to learn from their mistakes both in regards to TroPri's flaws and the Healin Good movie's problems. As much as I liked the Healin Good movie, its biggest issue is that for all that the marketing empathized it being a crossover with Yes Precure 5, the actual Yes girls only appeared in two scenes, felt more like living Deus Ex Machinas to be brought in to save the day than actual characters, and they never interact with the Healin Good girls outside of battles, so they didn't feel like they were that important to the main plot. You could cut them out of that movie entirely and nothing would be lost. The TroPri movie addressed these problems tenfold, as not only do the TroPri girls interact with the Heartcatch girls both before and during the main plot, they remain integral throughout the entire movie and share just as much screentime as the TroPri girls, both outside of and during battle scenes. It helps that the Heartcatch girls' characterization remains true to their parent series, and for anybody who's worried that Erika was just going to be flanderized into the funny girl who makes cartoony faces, rest assured, that doesn't happen, and she even retains a lot of her maturity from the later parts of Heartcatch, though she does have her funny cartoony moments.

Even the villain here is surprisingly a lot more compelling than the trio from the series. Yes, her motivation isn't anything new, and has probably been done lots of times and better in other stuff, but compared to how utterly lazy and bland the villain trio was in the series, her actions are actually legitimately threatening and actually manage to create palpable tension and urgency. Granted, the resolution to her plot at the very end came off as woefully cheesy and mealymouthed, and a lot of things about her backstory don't really make a whole lot of sense from a narrative standpoint, but for what its worth, she's still a better villain than Chongire, Numeri, and Elda could ever hope to be. Granted, I do find it kind of annoying that the movie decided to have Laura be the main focus of the movie and have her be the one to interact with Sharon the most, because God knows the producers just LOVE shilling Laura to high heaven, and I know many people didn't like this about the series. But I do feel that Laura did get some good material out of it, so I don't think it was all bad. The movie does have one flaw it shares with the series: It still doesn't do much with Sango, Minori, and Asuka, because heaven forbid we take the focus away from Manatsu and Laura even for five seconds, but it does make up for this by having Tsubomi and Erika receive just as much time in the limelight, even if it does result in Itsuki and Yuri not doing much.

But for as much as the TroPri movie does right, it's not without its own issues. For one...for a movie, the animation is actually kind of cheap-looking. Other than a few key shots, the animation isn't much better than its parent series. It almost feels like the movie was given a TV series budget, and that should not be. Several minutes are dedicated to stock footage of transformation scenes that go uninterrupted, which I'm pretty sure was done to save on costs. The soundtrack isn't much to write home about either, though I do really like that new remix of the Heartcatch Pretty Cure transformation music, so that's a plus right there. Furthermore, near the end of the movie, various shots are edited and cut in a weirdly erratic manner, and parts of them feel like stuff happened off screen without a real explanation for why they happened, such as how a character got from point A to point B without an explanation for how they got there and why when they were occupied with something else.

Despite these flaws, I can wholeheartedly say that I honestly found this movie to be far more interesting than the actual Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure series, in that it actually gave a damn about having a compelling storyline, a stronger villain, and rectifying at least some of the series' issues, even if it didn't always succeed. Plus, I'm always down for seeing more of my favorite Heartcatch girls!

 

[LightningTopaz]

Have you had a chance to see the new series, Hero Girl Sky Precure? I'm curious as to what you may think of it, especially the first ever male Cure.

The MyAnimeList profile for the latest series

 

[Juliko]

I have, and I really like it so far!

This review was just finished today, though I started writing it on April 17th, 2023.

Rating: 87/100

Animation has always been, and always will be, a versatile medium. From its initial inception in the late 19th century to now, animation all across the world tackled all sorts of stories and subject matter, and is capable of feats that live-action media can't replicate. Unfortunately, a good majority of people wrongly dismiss animation as just babysitting fodder for children, refusing to believe that it can be used to tell all kinds of stories. While that mindset is slowly going away, it's still around, and considering all the sad news about certain companies not only outright cancelling a crap ton of cartoons, but refusing to compensate animators for all their hard work and pretty much throwing them under the bus, it's probably not going to go away any time soon. Looking at you, David Zaslav and Warner Brothers. Luckily, Japan got the message pretty early on, and from the seventies onward, it treated animation as a medium just as capable of creative storytelling as anything else. That's not to say other countries don't do the same, but that's beyond the scope of this review. Plus, even as some people still treat animation as little more than children's fare or Family Guy knock-offs, there are still plenty of stuff made by people who love and revere animation as an art form, with the subject of today's review, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, being very much a love letter to animation as a whole.

When Midori Asakusa was young, she became fascinated not just with animation, but how its made. When she enters high school alongside her cynical, money-grubbing friend Sayaka Kanamori, she dreams of creating an anime set in the weirdly constructed campus of her high school. But she's not exactly good at talking to people and is rather shy by nature, so she hasn't been able to take that first step. While attending a screening at their school's anime club, they encounter Tsubame Mizusaki, a rich and famous model who also happens to be a classmate of theirs. Upon learning that Mizusaki also wants to become an animator, the three of them become fast friends, with Mizusaki and Asakusa finding common ground in their shared interest, though Kanamori mainly sees encouraging their interest as a way to make some cash. Together, this eclectic trio intend on creating an animation club so they can bring their creations into reality.

I initially passed over Eizouken when it first came out, because at the time, I was still deep into my anime burnout, and didn't claw myself out of it until COVID hit. It's only now, three years after it first aired, that I finally decided to sit down and watch it, especially now that Sentai Filmworks FINALLY has a release date set for their blu-ray set for the series this year. For the sake of brevity, I'm just gonna keep referring to the series as just Eizouken. For an anime that's entirely about the medium of animation, whoever decided to have Masaaki Yuasa and his company Science Saru produce the anime for Eizouken deserves a medal, because it's made clear from the very first frame that Yuasa and Science Saru understood the assignment they were given. The character designs are all unique, looking nothing like your typical anime character designs, but are expressive and lively, with Yuasa's team bringing them to life with his signature style of movement exaggeration. The backgrounds are given just as much attention, with the show taking place in a bizarre cityscape that actually has a pretty rich history and feels like a character in and of itself, from the sci-fi-esque architecture to the little nooks and crannies Asakusa and friends find whenever they're out and about. One thing to note about Eizouken as a series is that there are segments that take place in Asakusa and Mizusaki's imaginations, showing how immersed they are when they start thinking about how to animate things, contemplating story ideas, or explaining sci-fi concepts. These fantasy segments are animated with watercolor backgrounds, rough linework, and intentionally messy renders, reminiscent of storyboards and indicative of the creative process, which I think was a stroke of genius on the animation team's part. The usage of all these different animation styles, even the outline-less pastels in the short films the club creates, really highlight the medium's overall versatility, which makes sense since Eizouken is about showing off how great the medium can be.

The soundtrack I'm admittedly a bit more mixed on. It's not bad or anything, and the techno sounds that are present throughout the OST are used pretty effectively. The songs are well sung, too. I'm just not really a fan of heavy usage of techno in general, and there were some noises in Eizouken's OST that really hurt my ears, like the weird dial-up-esque beeping noise that appears whenever the girls get lost in their imaginations. I guess it's more a matter of personal taste for me. It's definitely not a bad soundtrack though, don't get me wrong. I will say that the sound design is very unique, not just in the regular things, like the usual sound effects. Did you know that some of the sound effects, particularly the ones that appear when Asakusa and Mizusaki get lost in their imaginations, were done by the voice actors themselves? To quote another reviewer, from the pat pat pat of propeller blades to the ch ch ch of a train on the tracks, even the whoosh of wind rushing through the air, is done by the leads VA’s. It’s incredibly charming, fits the scenes perfectly, and lends itself well to Eizouken’s “homemade” aesthetic.

The characters themselves are also a huge highlight for Eizouken as a whole. The main trio in particular all have the right balance of personality, quirks, strengths, and flaws that actually make them feel like three-dimensional people rather than just generic cutesy anime stereotypes. Everything from the way they carry themselves to even the quirks in their speech really bring them to life in the best way possible. I could really relate to Asakusa in particular, being shy around people and passionate about her interests. While they don't always change over the course of the story (With Kanamori being the biggest example of this), the way the anime gradually shows us what they're like and what drives them to do what they do manage to do an amazing job at changing the viewer's perspective on them. I love all these dumb kids. I kinda wish some of the side characters like Doumeki and Sowande could have gotten more screentime, though. That being said, my only other complaint about Eizouken is the character of Kanamori. Don't get me wrong, she's a perfectly fine character who bounces off Asakusa and Mizusaki amazingly, and her interactions with the rest of the characters are fun to watch. My problem with Kanamori isn't her penny-pinching ways or the fact that she sometimes goes too far in her criticism of Asakusa and Mizusaki sometimes. My issue with her is that she's somehow able to pull off all sorts of amazing feats and get connections with powerful people that no middle schooler should be able to, and the fact that she manages to pull it all off to solve whatever problem is in front of the club kind of makes her feel less like a character and more like a walking talking get-out-of-jail-free plot device or a force of nature that pulls solutions out of her butt whenever its convenient. Seriously, what kid her age is able to somehow garner a crap ton of media coverage around a short cartoon film and get said media coverage to turn out positive?

In terms of story, I've heard people compare Eizouken to Ed, Edd n Eddy, and I can absolutely see the similarities, as both are shows about three kids hanging around town and getting into adventures. But Eizouken is more structured, has an actual plot, and isn't anywhere near as mean-spirited as the later seasons of Ed, Edd n Eddy got. Eizouken's story in general isn't very complex, as it focuses solely on our main trio trying to make an anime and showing the work they put in to make it happen, exploring the realities of running a studio and making compromises in order to make your vision come into shape. But the strength of the characters and their colorful personalities give more meat to what would be a fairly rote story, and its unabashed celebration of the medium shines through in every frame, elevating Eizouken into something special. Bottom line, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken is a fun, energetic series that absolutely oozes with love for not only its source material, but for the medium of animation as a whole, and you absolutely should not miss out on it. Now if only certain people would acknowledge that animation is just as valid a medium as live-action movies and TV and not screw over the people who work on it. AGAIN, LOOKING AT YOU DAVID ZASLAV!!

 

[Juliko]

This review was written on May 27th, 2023.

Rating: 82/100

I have a confession to make: I haven't read much in the way of verse novels before 2021. The first verse novel I read was Starfish by Lisa Fipps, and I liked it. I have to admit, I was originally put off by the idea of verse novels, because it just seemed weird to me that people would try to write books in the way you'd write poetry, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to read verse novels. Luckily, I was able to find some that I liked, even if it took me a while to get used to their format. One of those novels was this one, Good Different by Meg Eden Kuyatt. I had wanted to read this before its initial release, as it focuses on an autistic protagonist and written by an autistic author, so I was already looking forward to it, but then Meg wrote this article describing her experiences writing the book before getting her diagnosis and how her agents kept rejecting her initial first novel because they couldn't understand her protagonist's neurodivergence. That made me want to read Good Different even more, and now that I've finally read it...yeah, I definitely like it.

The story centers on Selah Godfrey, a girl just starting middle school, and her mother is extremely insistent that she be normal and not stand out at school in any way. Trying to be normal is so ingrained in Selah's psyche that she even makes her own list of rules. Don't cry in public places, always laugh at jokes even if you don't understand them, don't get into fights, so on and so forth. But it's hard for Selah to keep it up all the time, as her system always gets overwhelmed at the end of the school day. No matter how much she tries to put on that mask, both kids and adults are well aware that she's not like the other kids, and they're not very kind about it either. One day, a classmate touches her hair without asking, and this overwhelms Selah so much that she unknowingly hits the girl in the nose. Not only does this earn her a three-day suspension at school, this single offense makes her into a complete pariah. Parents are demanding that she be expelled, Selah's friends drift away from her, one particular teacher is convinced she's a troublemaker, and other kids bully her, never letting her live down that incident. Selah thinks her life is over. But when she and her family go to a Comic Con in her area, an encounter with some vendors introduces some new words into her vocabulary, such as autism, overstimulation, and sensory overload, along with potential tools that could help her deal with her environment and live the life she wants without fear of ridicule.

Being as unfamiliar with verse novels as I am, I'm probably not in a position to judge Kuyatt's usage of it, but her overall prose is pretty good and accessible, and uses some great imagery when describing Selah's sensory issues. I also like that she uses different formats for the prose depending on Selah's state of mind or when she's writing poetry, living having the text be aligned left, or having it align left or right during scenes where people are talking. Sometimes the text will have intentionally weird spacing to convey things like confusion or despair, which works pretty nicely in the context of the narrative. The actual poems that are written all convey what they want to convey very well, and I could definitely relate to a lot of the ones involving autism and sensory overload, as I'm autistic myself and have experienced a lot of what Selah experienced, and probably what Kuyatt experienced as well. Some chapters take several pages, but others can consist of just one sentence. The book itself is a pretty fast read, so you don't have to worry about it taking too much of your time.

Obviously, Selah as a character is the biggest highlight of Good Different, and the kind of heroine autistic people can definitely root for. The book gives us a deep glimpse into her personality, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, and emotions. Since Kuyatt is also autistic, she writes Selah with sensitivity and delicacy, taking care to write her as a genuine person, which gives the narrative so much authenticity that is so lacking in similar books. Selah's interest in dragons and any media that has them such as How To Train Your Dragon doesn’t exist specifically to provide metaphors or a quirky characterization; rather, it’s something that a preteen nerdy girl would believably gravitate to. I should know, I've been obsessed with anime my whole life, as are many other girls who gravitated towards it in some capacity. Selah is able to have conversations about other subjects, even if dragons and poetry are on her mind a lot—and when she’s at a geeky con, that’s honestly no different from the majority of people, though the sections at the convention are fewer compared to the rest of the novel. Her love of dragons and poetry is never made out to be an obsession any stranger than the passion neurotypicals feel for what they like, and it enables her to find like-minded individuals that she can get along with, mainly those who help her learn what autism is and how that sets her on the journey to seek a diagnosis later. Oh, and one thing I admit I got a chuckle out of is that Kuyatt began the book with a quote from a Fire Emblem game (Sacred Stones to be more specific), a franchise that is well known for its love of dragons, both villainous and heroic. I also like that her mother Sue also got a character arc, learning that her well-meaning methods of parenting Selah unfortunately don't help her and are a reflection of her own insecurity about herself. I loved seeing her grow to accept herself alongside Selah, and I also loved Selah's relationship with her grandfather. Watching them bounce off each other always made me smile.

If there's one big complaint I really have with Good Different, is that I wish the story wasn't so laser focused on just Selah and her autism. Don't get me wrong, Selah's journey of self-discovery is compelling, and I liked it, but the book revolves entirely around Selah's issues, and I wish there had been, say, a subplot that wasn't related to Selah's ASD. An example of this would be Sarah Kapit's The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family, which had Lara solve little mysteries around the house, and her sister Caroline dealing with a friend who wants to involve her in schemes that she's not comfortable with. Granted, Selah does deal with issues like questioning whether her friend Noelle still wants to hang out with her and learning about poetry, but both are still tied to her being autistic. To quote someone's review of another book, autism is absolutely a big part of most autistic people’s lives; I have no problem with it being woven into many different aspects of a character. Autism isn’t simply a quirky/tragic accessory that can be separated from someone’s “actual self.” That said, I did find it iffy that Selah seemingly did not have any history, interests, traits, or behaviors that could just be Selah instead of Autistic Selah. The character ends up very much defined by her autism, which is a shame; it wouldn’t have taken more than a few tweaks to round her out and make the autism simply a part of her character rather than dominating it. Then again, this is Kuyatt's debut novel, so for all I know, she might improve on this in her later work. It does help that Selah is portrayed in a non-stereotypical manner, so she's still a fairly likeable, complex character even if I wish I could have learned more about her. I also wish that there were more chapters focusing on the convention, and more insight into Selah's classmates such as Noelle, Laurel, Cleo, or even Ezra. Adding more to this would have made it even better.

But for what it is, Good Different is still a pretty great verse novel, with a sympathetic but non-condescending portrayal of autism, critique of how underdiagnosed girls are compared to boys, and much needed messages of hope, acceptance, and the importance/benefits of accommodations for autistic people everywhere. I wish I could have read this when I was younger, and I certainly hope Meg Eden Kuyatt writes more novels like this in the future, because she's won herself a fan in me.

 

[Juliko]

I started this review on April 1st, 2023, but didn't finish it until today.

Rating: 70/100

Huh, now this is a movie I didn't expect to readily find. The Golden Bird is a short film running just under an hour, made and completed in 1984 but not released publicly until 1987. Based on the Brothers' Grimm fairy tale of the same name, the story goes as follows: Every night, a golden apple is stolen from a tree in the palace grounds. The king is furious and enlists his three sons to find the culprit. But his two oldest sons are lazy and have no interest in following his orders, while his youngest son Hans is the only one actually willing to take the job seriously, which is easy enough since his brothers prefer to foist all their responsibilities on him anyway. Hans manages to unveil the identity of the thief: A mysterious golden bird. While he's unable to catch it, he does manage to get one of its feathers to present as proof. Upon learning this, the king sends all three of his sons out into the world to bring the bird back. But Hans finds himself wrapped up in an adventure involving pink foxes, a gold hoarding queen, and a princess who really wants to find her older brother.

I'm not sure why this movie got shelved for three years, and there isn't much information on its production history beyond that. Plus, it only just recently received a high quality fan sub by Orphan Fansubs, which is how I learned about it. I haven't read the original fairy tale myself, even though I own a big, heavy Brothers' Grimm fairy tale book, so I can't comment on The Golden Bird's fidelity to it. I can say that the animation for its time is pretty good, a few scenes notwithstanding. But for the most part, the movie definitely nails the fairy tale atmosphere and tone. Starting off, the animation for its time is pretty good, save for some heavy usage of still shots at times. The character designs are distinct and full of personality, the backgrounds are detailed and fit the fairy tale atmosphere perfectly, and the actual motion is kinetic and lively. It did have to deal with some limitations because of the 80s tech used for the animation, but on the whole, the animation is a definite high point for The Golden Bird as a whole.

The music, not so much. The background music is okay, but the actual songs are kind of generic and haven't aged well in terms of sound. Plus, the musical sequences in which they're used are mostly there to just pad out the movie and don't really add anything to the narrative, especially the song/sequence that plays when Hans meets the princess for the first time. I'm also not a huge fan of the characters, as they're all pretty generic stock fairy tale archetypes, like the kid hero, the tomboyish princess, the evil queen who wants riches, the irresponsible older brothers who can't be bothered to take responsibility for their mistakes, so on and so forth. Plus, as nice as Hans starts out initially, he makes some pretty sexist remarks towards the princess later in the movie, and it's played off as "Oh, boys will be boys!" Yeah, the eighties were rough in terms of enforcing gender norms. Honestly, the only characters that really stand out are the queen, though that's because she owns her villainy and is hammier than Owain from Fire Emblem Awakening, and the drunk pink bird that helps Hans and Lulu get out of a ravine.

The story of The Golden Bird itself is mainly just a typical "save the princess and defeat the evil overlord" story, with nothing that really makes it stand out amongst other fairy tales that have done similar premises. I could predict every single story beat coming from a mile away, and for a character whose species is literally the movie's title, the golden bird itself is reduced to little more than an afterthought once Hans finds it. The golden bird just serves as the catalyst for Hans to go on his journey, and for Hans to get caught by the queen because of his inability to follow basic directions, that's it. The Golden Bird as a movie doesn't really have much going for it by itself, but the creativity and storyboarding that went into it, along with the fun action scenes really make it a feast for the eyes, so you can't say the staff behind it didn't put some degree of effort into its production. Oh, and the evil queen and her massive Ursula energy. Anybody who likes their hammy evil villains will probably stick around because she's just fun to watch.

In the end, The Golden Bird is just really pretty babysitting fodder that you can use to placate your kids for an hour. It's not a bad movie, nor does it really stand out amongst its contemporaries. It's a largely inoffensive, interesting little bauble in animation history, but nothing more.