#si vis

Sanda

Oh my GOD does Fuyumura Shiori's character have a cool design. As a fellow goth, gender envy. Animation style? Science Saru does it again - gorgeous sakuga and artistic sense.

The first line?

"A girl's butt is colder than I imagined."

interest level 80% -> 20% and nothing much happened that could save it. The MC mistaking the murder vibes for being a confession? 10% but. The actual stabbing? Back up to 20% lol. But nothing else happened that made me want to continue watching. I'm a shonen bro and all but nah, I'm good thanks.

Should you watch it? ABSOLUTELY. 💯 % At least give it a shot like I did. You might find it doesn't irk you as much or that you're willing to watch further and it gets better. If I hear something like that further down the line I might give it another chance but with limited time, I'm dropping it.

Please Forgive Me Your Majesty

God damnit I should have checked the run time. 5 minute episodes mean it's just one of those manhwa/webtoon's they put through a motion simulator to pretend each panel is moving and gave it a voice over. I've got other potatoe chips (read villainess/isekai trash) to eat, not gonna bother with this. So here, have the PV instead.

Digimon Beatbreak

The opening to this was awesome. I loved the world building and the character designs. And then as The Plot began to start I realized. Nostalgia glasses can suck sometimes.

I don't know why I was thinking this would be anything other than another Digimon show but yep. Nostalgic Saturday morning cartoon material. The sci-fi and futuristic vibes did a lot to carry me through the episode, but I was holding out for more music stuff to be included in the first episode. LOVE the MC is a drummer though, and he's got a cute design for a shonen!

I also enjoyed the fact he has a bugged QR code for a hand, and thought it was funny that everyone is basically carrying around a Tamagotchi.

BUT (ep. 1 spoiler)

The big brother/ parental figure getting LITERALLY FRIDGED at the end of episode 1 on grounds that only someone who super loves Digimon or is around the age of 13 or so would be able to suspend their disbelief for, is not something I'm interested in watching. See Si-Vis for the same reason.

If you love Digimon or don't mind fridges, I do recommend tho. The world building is GREAT from just episode 1 and again, if I hear good things and have more time, I might be willing to give it a further go.

Let's Play

I didn't realize this was based on a WESTERN webtoon, but as soon as it started playing, I could tell (not a bad thing!). If you're a fan of the original webtoon, give this a shot because you'll probably enjoy it!

Unless the anime girl-ification doesn't do it for you hahaha

For me, however, this felt like, rather than adapting the story and pace to match animation as an art form unto itself, they were trying to make an animated version of each panel. I don't mean like Please Forget That Night and the vaguely AI effects, as this is an actual animated show, but…

The pacing of speech is SO slow.

The pacing of romance is SO weird.

I don't know if that carries over from the webtoon, but it took me until the last quarter of the show to realize this might just be a dating simulator story, and that one of the guys might even be an option.

Her boss is so creepy and a poorly represented asshole/mean love interest (as opposed to a more enjoyable bullying/teasing love interest) (was he an attempt at a tsundere? or just an asshole? is it the anime that makes MC look like a total wuss?)

I don't feel like I was properly introduced to ANY of these characters?

Not even the MC, despite now mostly knowing her whole deal by the end of episode 1. (I don't find her nearly as cool as the vibes she seems to give off in the promo art) All the pieces of the story seemed to come out of order or at weird times and I was left with a sense of incompleteness. Maybe it's because it's a western webtoon getting adapted, or maybe it's just because I went in knowing nothing, but I made it to the end of episode 1 and went "meh". Maybe I'll give the webtoon a shot, maybe not. Gonna recommend the webtoon to my Fox though!

Si-VIS

I was SO excited to see Namikawa Daisuke as the voice of a MAIN character (Yosuke) in an IDOL anime. GIVE ME SINGING HISOKA. I LOVE SINGING HISOKA.

but NOOOOOOOOOO. We get a typical countryside-to-tokyo welcome-to-the-real-world Protag-kun and a big brother type who's like "Youre not ready" when the kid is absolutely ready.

and THEN

SPOILER

THEY KILL YOSUKE OFF.

FRIDGED IN EPISODE 1.

I'm out. Namikawa Daisuke is off to voice a Dragon Otaku Elf in Campfire Cooking and I'm off to go watch him geek out over there.

I will say, watching this with Capybara, who is an avid idol game fan btw, helped me appreciate the fact that the monsters were all 3D rigged, but that they didn't rig the idols and insteadkept them 2D, which I guess is rare nowadays. However Id like to point out I saw no dancing from these idols, just singing and fighting like a shonen.

If you don't mind the fridge, give this one a shot because it's got a fun premise! I just can't handle the character I latched on to getting killed of in episode 1 with very few death flags to warn me not to latch on in the first place.

Wandance

Couldn't make it past 5 minutes. I LOVE the premise enough that I plan to go give the manga a shot, but man. That was some of the worst professional rigging I've seen in an anime since 3D CG started getting popular. And I'm not even a CGI snob. I watched all of Berserk!

I was worried it was going to be another hand shakers but then the clipping!! Heads clipping through clothes! Awkward unnatural limb movements! And what little of the dancing I saw looked like my own first attempts to get Miku to move in MMD way back in 2012.

The opening should have been the biggest tip off because those tend to (not always!) show off how much budget the anime has to work with, and this opening was mostly stills, with no dancing at all (FOR A DANCING ANIME of all things).

The song is a bop that's going on my playlist though.

I feel like either this was a passion project and baby's first rig OR someone ruined a perfectly good story trying to make a quick buck. So the fact that Madhouse made this? God I'm so disappointed.

Someone please tell me if I should push past the first bit I watched and keep going. Does it get better? Or should I just read the manga?

Anyways, here's hoping I continue writing cause I'm enjoying it, and I love rambling. And not as much studying for my teaching license as last time I tried to start.