Quick Final Thoughts – Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

Reki Kawahara is not a good writer, and I am far from the first person to say so. His plots are haphazard and incoherent, his characters are dull and unrelatable, and his ability to completely destroy his own potential is legendary. All Keiichi Sigsawa had to do to clear his bar was to write a story with proper pacing and even two-dimensional characters.

The fact that he managed to take the most poorly-thought-out game in SAO’s universe and craft a story that features almost none of Kawahara’s faults speaks volumes about his ability compared to the series’ creator, and displays just how awful Kawahara is at his craft.

Here we have a show with multiple female characters with agency, none of whom are ever in danger of sexual assault, and all of whom have completely understandable motivations and consistent characterizations. We have a world where people take actions that make sense and are able to put aside all else when real consequences are on the line. And we have really satisfying, well-choreographed, and utterly brutal action that culminates in the best final battle scene in the franchise.

I can’t say that it was completely smooth sailing. There is one odd scene of strange fanservice, and though it never comes close to the creepiness of the original, it’s still an unfortunate speed bump that goes on way too long, but it’s still nothing compared to watching Asuna get molested.

And it’s not gonna stop me from awarding this an 8/10, with a really strong recommendation for any fan of the series – this is what SAO should look like. I have almost no hope that the upcoming SAO III Alicization will come anywhere close, since the premise of the arc involves it exclusively following Kirito and isolating him from the rest of the cast, but I’ll probably be watching it anyway if only to make fun.

Quick Final Thoughts – Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These

The original Legend of the Galactic Heroes is pretty infamous among more dedicated otaku as a show that they mean to watch eventually, but can’t for two reasons: first, until recently, it was completely unavailable (in the United States, anyway, where we now have it on HIDIVE), and second, because of its absolutely crushing length. At 110 episodes, a lot of us just don’t have the patience or time for it. So when Production I.G. took the reins on a remake project condensing it down to just 12, I was also curious about how they’d manage to trim so much fat.

And what results is a show that remains watchable and interesting, but at a great cost. Even as someone who hasn’t seen the original, the epic scale of this story is simply too much for twelve episodes, even if we are going to see three films starting next year to wrap things up. This version completely skips pretty much all worldbuilding to just portray a story which is meant to feature two heroes despite the fact that one of them is pretty unambiguously bad, not that it matters because absolutely nobody aside from Yang Wen-li gets enough development to really matter. Dozens of named characters are thrown at the screen (complete with name cards) and flanderized to the point where none of them are memorable, and even our deuteragonist Lohengramm gets utterly sidelined after the flashback episodes are over.

And as for the worldbuilding, it’s desperately important for a science fiction story, because without it, it could just be set on Earth in the present day and it would make literally no difference. We get all kinds of ideas tossed up into the air (the Empire’s insane arrogance, the fact that the war should have ended halfway into the series but kept going because of beaurocracy and public opinion, the idea that none of the people really commanding the war have their lives on the line for it) that there just isn’t enough time to catch, and it’s a serious shame.

While we manage to get a coherent story, crazy-high production values, and some fantastic music, the meat of the story is just missing. This remake needed at least 26 episodes (perhaps even with a movie to wrap it up) if not a Gundam-style 50, and as-is, it is not going to convince anyone that the original was as much of a masterpiece as those who have watched it will claim, and the ending is absolutely insulting with how entirely unsatisfying it is, making no attempt at all to actually wrap up any plot threads. They really want to stake this on the upcoming films, but I’m not even sure I’m interested at this point.

6/10. Maybe this is salvageable, but as it is, it’s just really disappointing that something with so much potential just ended up barely making it over the line of being average.

Quick Final Thoughts – Food Wars: The Third Plate

Food Wars continues to flatten shonen competition under its ridiculous boot.

My issues with its main competitor are on the books, and what Food Wars has over it is pure consistency. After an iffy first episode way back in its first season, this series’ writing has been firing on all cylinders and has kept me totally invested for years. While it has not gotten any less wacky (particularly with reaction shots), the way the show plays so totally earnestly gives it major points. The show can make you totally buy into the fight against food fascism by simply not giving you the option to write it off – I can buy that our characters’ issues are as big as they seem.

And I cannot get over how well Yukihira Soma is written as a main character. Sure, he fits the “cocky underdog” mold to a T, but he doesn’t pull wins out of his ass with the power of friendship, he does so with a lot of know-how, experience, preparation and experimentation, and tends to completely humiliate his opponents for underestimating himself and his family, and he’s not even infallible! We do see him suffer crushing defeats of his own, and it’s never because his rivals were cheating.

Of course, it’s not a 10/10 experience unless it’s got a satisfying conclusion, which is unfortunately not something this series has ever presented, with this particular iteration ending mid-tournament, but it’s just because J.C. Staff ran out of material to adapt. It’ll be a bit before we see The Fourth Plate simply because the author has to keep the manga going.

9/10, though. If you haven’t gotten on this train yet, you’ve got a lot of fun ahead of you whenever you choose to catch up.

Quick Final Thoughts – Lostorage conflated WIXOSS

Better than incited by a country mile.

I really can’t overstate that while the previous season of this show wasn’t necessarily bad, the pacing was truly glacial and the deuteragonist was making idiotic decisions for the sake of the plot.

conflated tosses almost all the issues out the window and brings back the original generation characters to team up with the newer cast and give us what seems to be a proper franchise finale, in a tightly-plotted 12 episodes that present a believable story and wrap up nearly every loose end, and a lot of the ridiculous edge of the prior seasons is sanded down into something way more palatable.

While there are still problems – the rules of the game are still totally unclear and it makes for a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh-esque deus ex machina moments, and some major characters are heavily underutilized (Chinatsu and Iona get the worst of it), series staples like great music are still here, and Kiyoi works excellently as the protagonist. As a culmination of three prior seasons and a movie, conflated is the best WIXOSS has to offer, and I have no problem giving it a 9/10.

Quick Final Thoughts – Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku

It comes closer to just being The Big Bang Theory than I would like.

Honestly, I enjoyed this one, but it was absolutely not as good as Recovery of an MMO Junkie. While I appreciate the very grounded comedy, and was flabbergasted at the fact that the main couple are dating by the end of the first episode, they barely seem into each other throughout the series even though they’re framed as being a good couple. The main cast also never quite gels together as friends, and most of the time just end up split off in coupling pairs.

I also have a problem with the story structure, or more accurately, the complete lack of one. The relationships depicted end the show in pretty much the same state as they were in episode 2, and the story simply does not move. The show introduces a major character in the penultimate episode that we only barely get to know, and there is absolutely no build up or climax at any point. I recognize that everyone depicted are adults at this point so showing them totally transforming into better people wasn’t going to happen, but they all are almost entirely static.

And yet, I still found things to like here. For the most part, the show is drawn (drawn, not animated) very well, and while most of the reference humor got light chuckling from me, there was a throwback Vocaloid joke that made me genuinely laugh enough that I had to pause the show.

I also enjoyed the chemistry that the couples have with each other. While I never got the sense that Hirotaka and Narumi are really in love with each other, their dynamic as friends still totally works and watching them butt heads is interesting. I also really liked Koyanagi and Kabakura’s relationship; they give off a great, natural vibe of a couple that have been dating for a while and don’t feel like they need to impress anyone.

I also adore Naoya, despite not being introduced until the second half of the series. I could instantly understand his relationship with his brother and what they’re like as siblings, and I love his earnest-but-airheaded personality, which usually gets applied to women in shows like this. I wish his love interest had appeared sooner than the second to last episode.

7/10. Recommended for the romcom set (who got several shows to work with this season; we’ll get to it) and fans of The Big Bang Theory.

Quick Final Thoughts – A Place Further Than the Universe

I guess I have a habit of procrastinating on shows that are definitely going to make me cry.

And this one accomplished that in spades, thanks to its brilliant ability to make you completely invested in its characters. These four girls are as well-developed a team as Houkago Tea-Time (and will remind you a lot of them), and their story is flawlessly constructed to draw the right emotions out of you.

And my God, does every element here work together to punch you in the gut. I watched the last two episodes back to back, and cried over and over again. What these girls find when their journey is over is a lot more than any of them could have expected, and made for a pitch-perfect finale. I might end up talking more about this one in the future, because it’s one of the most deeply affecting stories I’ve ever experienced.

10/10. A masterpiece.

Quick Final Thoughts – Caligula

I don’t understand, I really don’t.

I mean that in all sorts of ways, primarily the fact that the cast seem to frequently forget that the story is happening. I don’t understand how we go from trying to escape brainwashed imprisonment to “let’s go to a theme park opening” in the span of a single episode. I don’t understand how a show with this opening features exactly one action scene in the first five episodes, and it’s right at the beginning.

And I don’t understand how this came from the mind behind Persona 1 and 2.

This might actually be a more inept video game adaptation than Persona 5, because that might at least be interesting and make sense if you haven’t played the game, Caligula is a tonal disaster that sets up an interesting idea and then gets bored of itself.

It also still looks terrible, up to and including the boring, generic character designs. This show has absolutely no sense of consistent style.

I honestly hoped this would go somewhere cool, and it led to me watching more of it than I needed to.

3/10, dropped after five episodes.

Quick Final Thoughts – Gundam Build Divers

Way to go nowhere fast, man.

The first episode set up a pretty neat cast (at least concerning the side characters), stakes, and started with a cool battle, and then over the following five episodes, proceeded to do absolutely nothing. This spinoff was always a kids show, but that’s never been this obvious, where the plot of a Gundam show of all things has completely stalled and become Pokemon, with easy-target cheaters as the villains, and totally unmemorable amalgamations of other kid heroes as protagonists.

Honestly, this show takes the idea of a Gundam MMO and totally wastes it by just using the setting as an excuse for different locales and being really inconsistent with rules like the avatars not getting tired, which was a major plot point in episode 4 that was totally dropped when the characters were exhausted by a desert trek in episode 5. It needs some spice very badly, but it looks like we’re just doing another tournament. Hell, I know people make jokes about it, but imagine if these characters DID get trapped in the game SAO-style? It could be like Infinite Ryvius with giant robots or something. It’s not original, but it’s an idea, and that’s more than “let’s take a new setting and just do the exact same thing as last time” that we seem to be building to.

Honestly, though, most of these were problems from the start (especially the lame carbon copy kids) and I blame myself for giving it more than one episode out of some hope that we’d get cool shit out of it.

4/10, dropped after five episodes.

Quick Final Thoughts – Last Period: the journey to the end of despair

Honestly, this show just isn’t as smart or funny as it thinks it is.

Five episodes in, and my biggest issue is that the first episode had pretty much everything the show has to offer. Ordinarily that’s great, but I’m speaking literally – most of the jokes (especially calling and Choco breaking the fourth wall and explaining jokes) have just been repeated every episode, and everyone’s favorite part (the Team Rocket trio Wiseman) are relegated to the background with just tiny bit roles.

And the plots are pretty stupidly cliched, too, as we basically just reuse stock sitcom plots (winning the lottery, getting a gambling addiction, etc) that play out exactly how you think they’re going to as soon as you find out they’re happening. Obviously our main trio will just end up broke again.

And the characters mostly suck and have no distinguishable personality traits from one another. The show I compared this to before was Konosuba, but the main cast there were loads more memorable by this point, and the universe was more or less consistent.

It’s pretty clear that this is gonna follow the standard episodic comedy format and the plot will kick in in the last two or three episodes, but I don’t think I could stay interested that long.

The production is still holding up, and it’s not exactly boring, but I don’t see myself remembering it a year down the line.

5/10, just on the bad side of average.

Quick Final Thoughts – Libra of Nil Admirari

I could tell from just the episode screenshot on VRV that this was a visual novel adaptation. Not saying that’s instantly bad, but it reminded me right away of Code:Realize.

My problem with that is that the aesthetic of some of these shows drives me up the wall with how oddly flat everything is, and one look at the studio tells me that I shouldn’t expect things to get better, because both of the Zero-G productions I’ve seen (Battery the Animation and DIVE!) were unimpressive to look at and I dropped both of them halfway through (though the production wasn’t the reason in either case, at least).

And it’s not the only reason I won’t be watching through this one. No, that’s because it’s kinda dumb. The idea of a series about hot guys whose job is to retrieve books sounds appealing to me for pretty obvious reasons, but in execution it’s pretty silly. Seeing people get shocked because A BOOK can cause people to do bad things is unintentionally narmy.

But the art doesn’t help. While I kind of like the watercolor-gradient aesthetic choice, it’s weird that it’s only applied to hair, and the color palette is boring as dirt and everything is super washed out so that eighty percent of the screen is usually somewhere between brown and eggshell. This might be a holdover from the source game, but that doesn’t give it a pass.

Terrible. 3/10