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Waiting... (2005)
Maybe one day the critics will understand the brilliance of this film, until then we'll just be 'Waiting...'
The ratings are a testament to how disassociated privileged critics are to the working class.
This film perfectly encapsulates what working in hospitality is like as well as being downright hilarious. It's low critic score is undoubtedly unjust but it just goes to show how detached these privileged people are to the lower and working class. They clearly have no idea what working in hospitality is like so they sit on their sheltered pedistal and slander this film.
It may seem as though I'm saying that the film is good because it's relatable, but I'm not. I'm saying it's spot on portrayal of working in a restaurant or cafe makes it undoubtedly entertaining to anyone that can relate to it.
However it's the critics reviews about it not have a strong clear protagonist or antagonist and the films structure that are once again illustrating their lack of understanding.
This films effectiveness comes from it's realism, having a hyperbolised villain or the lead characters unstoppable motivation just aren't what you find in a minimum wage establishment. The comments about the film 'not having satisfying payoff' are absurd. When Mitch (John Francis Daley) finally breaks and goes off at all the staff at the end of the film it's more than satisfying to see the new guy, the underdog not only stick up for himself but now belong as a staff member.
Sure, it doesn't entirely follow the three act structure or the hero's journey but if it did; the film wouldn't work.
If an artsy indie film broke the conventional structure of film they would applaud it but when this film does to effectively execute it's concept, it's slandered for 'having no structure'. The hypocrisy of these critics is glaring.
Maybe one day they'll understand the true brilliance of this film but until then we'll just be 'Waiting...'
Karigurashi no Arietti (2010)
On the surface its gorgeous but its substance is bland.
First off, its a ghibli film so obviously its gorgeous. The score is spectacular too but used in moments that do not fit at all, like when her mother is being abducted. That should be a high stakes distressing scene, with her feeling completely exposed and helpless, not to mention shes a protagonist.and the antagonist has just found their home, its a scene where you want the audience to be on edge and stakes to be high. Instead its this soft calming harp. Do the filmmakers understand dramatic meaning?
The characters are incredibly plain and few clear motives and complications are made in the film. Haru is one of the weakest villains ive ever seen, there was no motive for her wanting to capture the little people, the majority of people would be astonished to see such a wonder. At least if you established that her character was obsessed with collecting rare bugs, or maybe you always saw her in the background playing with dolls as if they were real. You could even make it that she's desperate for money so she sells them. Just a few off the top of my head but far better than the nothing they had for this character.
The father is stoic, which had potential to grow, at the start of the film arrietty runs up to him and says hello but he is cold and distant to her. There's great potential there for her to see her father's true character and actually grow a relationship from the nothing they never really had until now that he has someone to share 'borrowing' with. Another great opportunity to make this average film better wasted.
The dialogue in this film is appalling, the writers clearly had no idea how subtext works. Every character said exactly what they were thinking and it felt so unnatural and/ or like blatant exposition. If the grandmother human has been eager to see little people her entire life then finds out that her houselady has called an exterminator to rid them as she has seen them, the natural response would be to scold her if not fire her. Especially if she locked her grandson in his room, leaving him to risk his life climbing on the rooftop. Besides Arritetty none of the characters have emotions, but even she seems content most of the time.
The writing is just sub-par and Ghibli animation substituting that only goes so far. The size ratio felt off alot of times as well, with human objects the little people interract being off in size, it would've been an amazing touch if you could clearly see what everything in their house was made from and how the characters cleverly downsized it and adapted it into an object for their size. If i were to make this film i would build an entirely practical miniature from household items and create the characters to size, which would not make the animators lives far easy as they can reference the scale. I don't know why weak writing is such a reoccurance in ghibli films, surely one of the greatest animation studios in history can attract decent writers. Its just sad to see such talent wasted on such a plain story.
At times a romance between sho and arrietty was implied, what if Arritetty is morally torn between being the future of her species but shes in love with a human boy? Just a basic idea that could at least give this film some depth and actual complications.
Invincible (2021)
Completely Overrated but Invincible and Omni-Man's arc is exceptional.
First off this show is completely overrated and its good to see its rating slowly deteriorate to something more legitimate than the 10/10's irrational buffoons immediately spammed as soon as the first few episodes were released. In short everything apart from the arc between Mark and his dad is either boring or mediocre. Besides robots plot line, which was very interesting at first, it was strange for someone of his high level of intelligence, logic and reason to put Rexplosion on the Guardians of the Globe (the finest heroes on Earth). Especially when Rex is immature, unintelligent, arrogant, obnoxious and often shows the opposite of the qualities needed in a hero. Then we see Robot is going to clone Rex and it starts to make sense; he's going to replace him so his intelligence can be in an attractive body as well as start a relationship with monster girl. Did this happen? No. What actually happens is some of the laziest uneventful writing I've ever seen. Robot who is now a teenage version of Rex and he just explains everything to the team and they soon forgive him. There goes a great opportunity for conflict and controversy in the team later on, not to mention how much of a waste of time that all was if it led to no consequences. The majority of the time the show is just a boring and cliché high-school drama. It was almost laughably generic, not even trying anything remotely new or original. I'll skip over the reoccurring plot holes science wise, like when Mark was going to Mars and didn't eat or drink for weeks, did he just sit on the cabin and wait all that time? I'll skip over these to spend more time of in-depth writing critique. Episode 1's insanely unconventional ending left the audience begging for more gore and answers as it carried viewers through the next few episodes of uninspired American high school drab. For season 2 I also highly recommend taking out crappy pop songs that pop up and unfortunately play every now and again. The spectacularly done fight and finally meaningful writing in episode 5 was a reminder of what made this show different and enjoyable to begin with. After a sludge through episode 6; we arrive at episode 7 and 8. Whew boy. The subversion in the fight sequence between omni-man and Invincible vs the Kaiju and immortal is downright august; the audience wants the Kaiju to win because they're aware of the consequences if Omni-Man isn't stopped, then Mark joins the fight and now suddenly the audience wants the Kaiju to lose for the sake of Mark not dying. Suddenly the immortal joins the fight and the audience is constantly switching sides trying to decide who needs to and should win or lose for the best outcome, to capture such a quantity of audience subversion is undeniably brilliant. Just brilliant. Episode7 is easily the best episode of the series. The fight and the torment Mark is put through in episode 8 is executed flawlessly however there's quite a lot of issues in this episode in other areas. First off, Mark was forced to murder thousands of people but he doesn't carry the emotional burden and psychological damage from it he should as he talks to his buddies about it over a burger, after the amount of blood he was forced to spill, Mark should not nearly be as functional as he is when he wakes up. Omni-mans motive wasn't very original or creative it was essentially that of Ego's from Guardians of the galaxy. The Viltrumites and their goal is blatant plagiarism from Star Wars, they're literally called the Empire as well. To top it all off they hint at a rebellion in parts of the galaxy as well at the end of episode 8. In conclusion, the entirety of this show's quality can be found when Omni-Man is on screen. 7.4/10.
Samurai Chanpurû (2004)
An awesome Creation, no doubt no doubt
I was a little nervous going into this as it was made by the same creator of the trainwreck Cowboy Bepop; but while keeping the same unconventional flare Bebop had, Samurai Champloo was really great. The writing was significantly better and the characters were interesting and had good chemistry and development. From the start, Mugen is a very self-centred and rude character that misuses his strength to go out of his way to pick fights. Over the season he becomes much more likable in the way that he is the physical embodiment of a male's horny subconscious. What every guy thinks when talking to a girl or being around a girl Mugen does and it's actually quite hilarious a lot of the time. Especially in the episode where when knocked out by a spy disguised as a prostitute, it turns him into a literal god of horniness; fighting off hordes of trained men just to bang this chick. That episode concluded really well as the audience finds out that he wasn't just being used by her and she was actually in love with him but was respecting that each of them had to finish their mission before getting together. Mugen went for a one night stand but found a wife; went for coal but found gold. The pilot episode was perfect, fully established the characters and their motivations, what the overarching goal is in the show is and the interesting, dysfunctional and comedic dynamic between the three. My one complaint is that when you start with characters that are as skilful and powerful as Jin and Mugen, they don't really have much room for development and could potentially be a Mary Sue but that wasn't too prevalent in Champloo as the creators found good ways for this to not get in the way all the time. This actually made it especially effective in fights where Jin/ Mugen was outmatched as seeing a character as powerful as them panic and be losing the fight made the audience more invested and intimidated by their enemy. It concluded really well, those final episodes were prettyyy hectic. A really great original show all around.
Dokutâ Sutôn (2019)
This show is laughably subpar and ignorant people are convinced it's good!
Only a few episodes through and this show is already grinding my gears. The characters so far are cliché and shallow. The writing and dialogue are sub-par. Senku is looking to be a Mary Sue. Shishio does a great job at explaining why the world would be better without adults from his own emotional sake and for the greater good; Senku (the god of logic) reply's with "I'm going to save every human". No explanation or a rebuttal that outmatches Shishio's proposition, only because he's the good guy so he has to save everyone, even if its a solution that completely lacks logic and resolve. Did i forget to mention that Senku's major character trait is that he's primarily logical and intelligent, not emotional; so Shishio's preposition should really be his. Senku even uses the word logical incorrectly on occasion. Another excuse he's made to side with saving every human is that he "prefers civilization building games" so its not his priority. Therefore he shouldn't care whether or not Shishio fulfills his plan. In terms of this premise, culling the adults is the logical thing to do, every from of everyone's identity is gone so you can't individually sift through the statues and determine whether they're good a good or not and decide whether to revive them from there. Saving only children has a higher chance of success, children would be more open minded to this free lifestyle, while adults are more likely to be more stuck in their ways and try and revert back to the old way of living as Shishio explains. Not to mention its more likely for adults to be less likely to be lead by teenagers. Bringing back children and adults creates an imbalance in power, but starting from scratch with only children makes everyone equal to work together and rebuild under their guidelines which they are fully capable of with Senku leading. Honestly the only part of this show that isn't substandard is the level of detail behind the science, it is so interesting and it is literally carrying the show. Update: Senku can either put out the fire and create gunpowder to kill Shishio or can make more fires to attract another survivor in the distance. Killing Shishio literally solves his entire current dilemma, will make of another bang potentially more smoke to attract the survivor, getting two birds with one stone. The other solution is signaling to the survivor to potentially get them on his team, despite the fact that he can literally resurrect an entire population at his disposal. However because this second solution uses up his gunpowder; Shishio will kill Senku and potentially his friends as well as every adult statue. One of these is the glaringly obvious logical solution while the other is blatantly stupid. Which one does Senku pick? The second blatantly stupid one, why? Because the entire time he had been using subliminal messaging to make Shishio hit his neck to kill him, where he had a piece of stone to heal his broken neck. If that was his trump card why use it on a situation that could've been so easily avoided. Not to mention that backup would've been extremely helpful if he failed to kill Shishio with the gunpowder in the case of following the first solution. I barely made it to episode 5, the writing is unbearably bad, the science still carried it. I am dropping the show and if I'm going to watch solely for the science; I might as well just watch Bill Nye. This show is lucky to get a 5 but I'm giving it a 6 because of how well they did the science.
Mononoke-hime (1997)
Every single protagonist in this Film is so incredibly stupid, its so difficult to side with the forest...
I still need to do a rewatch to finish my critique, please standby...
Gekijôban Kimetsu no yaiba: Mugen Ressha hen (2020)
I'm speechless...
There isn't enough ink or paper in the world to write down everything i loved about this visual spectacle, not that my words could even scratch the surface of fully captivating this level of quality. So I'll just say the things that stopped this masterful work from being a 10/10. There is an large amount of blatant exposition is this film, there are times when it makes sense for a character to be revealing such information but Enmu just stood on top of the train telling his entire plan and more for over 10 minutes for no reason. The music is still top notch but I don't think it was nearly as powerful as the score in the 1st season which stuck to more traditional Japanese instruments. Stop reading this already and go watch it!!!
Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004)
Had me in love in the first half, not gonna lie
Up until halfway through I was in love with this film, I felt like I could watch it forever and I explicitly said that to myself. However I've noticed studio Ghibli movies excel is creativity and extraordinary imagination but struggle with plot writing in some cases, when they actually try to add moving parts and complications it seems to fall apart a bit and plot holes start to emerge. Except in Spirited away, they did a flawless job at intertwining their astonishing imagination and animation with great plot, character development and writing. Issues I noticed: Sophia fell in love with Howl so quickly and it didn't really feel very plausible, obviously she loved the magic he brought into her world but because of him she turned into an old lady and never really makes any effort at fixing the curse. It was very vague what would fix Sophie's curse and its never really explained why she would appear younger every now and then. Why was she so forgiving to the witch of waste, she literally almost ruined her life and Sophie's response is to add her to the family and say she loves her? ok. Kissing the scarecrow to free him was pretty cliché not to mention how would the prince returning home suddenly stop the war? Logically it kind of falls apart in the end which is a real shame cos I straight up loved this movie from the start.
Kureimoa (2007)
Highpoints will blow you away and low points will leave you frustrated or bored
Up until the end, I really didn't have too many complaints, it was a really good show that got more intelligent by the episode. The witches maw -> the critical point part 1 + the endless gravestones were insanely good. Unfortunately even when it was amazing the true shortcoming was always the fighting, it wasn't bad but it wasn't nearly as satisfying when the majority of what the audience saw what just quick slashing with no real weight and clarity behind each individual blow. They didn't really explain how awakened beings can go back to being in human form, it made sense for standard Yoma but for the absolute size and power of an awakened being it seemed far fetched to fit back into a human body not to mention unnecessary, when you're that unstoppable why would you want to cower away behind a disguise? Priscilla's motivation as to why she hated Teresa made no sense especially when she could still remember everything, so she could clearly see it wasn't in any way Teresa's fault, but somehow she came to that bold conclusion. They spent so much time on Raki at the end, it was a bit overdone especially when the majority of those scenes with him just made the audience dislike his character for being a coward, lacking resolve and just being blatantly stupid. Finally to top it all off Raki proceeds to save Priscilla's life because he's a small minded little boy with no concept of a larger picture, so she gets saved and its essentially all for nothing. Leaving the audiences angry by such insolent logic and reasoning and with so many loose ends.
Akatsuki no Yona (2014)
Meh.
I don't feel enough incentive to give this show an in depth critique, so here are my thoughts summarized:
Found it mostly boring, the show takes forever just to show a reasonably uneventful plot, a chore to finish and didn't even conclude. Did have great chemistry between characters, and did have some great moments.
Dororo (2019)
A genius idea gone unfulfilled
Before I get into the long list of shortcomings, its important to establish this is a good show, when it was at its best it was insanely good but it just didn't manage to keep that quality consistent. After episode 6, I said, if this quality stays through the rest of the show it will undoubtedly be incredible, unfortunately it does not, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day ruined. Such an amazing concept and premise, a better writing team could've easily turned it into a masterpiece. The show continues in an episodic nature and every now and then goes back to the overarching plot, however each episode that doesn't focus on the main plot just feels like the biggest waste of time because the ghouls/demons he fights in those episodes are just so insanely easy for Hyakkimaru to kill its completely unsatisfying and if it weren't for him getting his limbs back those episodes would be practically useless. The episodes where the creators clearly put all the effort into making splendid fight scenes were the ones that revolved around the main plot, these episodes were the best part of the show, I loved Tarhomaru's dilemma, however as it got the end of the show Hakkimaru's character's constant hypocrisy, philosophical contradictions, selfishness and lack of understanding morals made him very unlikeable fast. Not to mention, it was understandable him being quiet and unresponsive at the start of the show when he had no limbs or senses but as he regains them not only does he not seem happy about touching, hearing, smelling etc. for the first time but when he could speak, he barely did. It would've been awesome to have some meaningful dialogue towards to end and really see his character blossom from a mindless drone to a clear human being with emotions and personality. The constant dilemma everyone talks about is his life more important that the land and all its people, Hakkimaru goes to great lengths to get his body back and he doesn't even seem to use it or appreciate it, so was it really worth more than the entire domain suffering and dying? The dilemma just wasn't challenging enough for the audience to actually take Hakkimaru's side. Why didn't his mum, stepdad and brother just leave with Hakki and Dororo when they left, why delay to get trapped in the burning palace, just silly. Why did Hakki abandon Dororo at the end, completely against everything we've seen about him throughout the show. There's lots of other plot holes riddled all through and it just makes me sad to see a great premise with potential to be a masterpiece go unfulfilled.
Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin (1986)
Small fixes could yield huge results for this show.
Really really good! I would love to see a remaster with swifter more realistic animation, fixing up the small plot issues scattered throughout the show and ensuring that it stays grounded within the laws of nature and realism. If all mentioned is fulfilled this show will undoubtedly be one of the best shows of all time. I may do an actual in depth review discussing specific shortcomings throughout.
Kami no Tou (2020)
Get real
Levels were lame, all the characters had good backstories and motives, Bam was practically Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul, your stereotypical anime nice guy, Rak was a spitting image of Inoske and Khun was practically Norman from Promised Neverland (not because of the blue hair). Logically, the characters would be from all reaches of the realm, masters of different martial arts like from the film Warrior, wearing functional protective armour and would have a valid explanation to their source of immense power. For example Rak's large size explained why he was so physically strong, Hatzu the samurai had trained with the blade since he was a child and Anaak inherited her power from her mother. Instead the majority were people that looked like people cosplaying as anime schoolgirls that have the most power out of everyone, why? Because the show says so. Not to mention how restrictive and inefficient the majority of outfits would've been in combat. I'm also tired of how hard people can get hit in anime and be fine, when a character should've been pulverized by that attack but they barely have a scratch, it distances the audience from immersion because of the lack of realism and mortality in such characters. I mentioned that the levels were lame but in terms on thinning the herd to find those who are worthy of the tower, practically all the levels mainly required luck, which would've provided the complete opposite results of what the goal was, they should've been tests of strength, willpower and resolve. I also didn't like how much they avoided doing fight scenes/ had so much build up to fight scenes and didn't fulfill the buildup, they would just skip fights at times or avoid it and the fights they did have were slow and lacked much weight, there were some that had stakes and were pretty great but on a whole, was quite disappointing. Also they finished on a cliffhanger and barely resolved anything.
Akira (1988)
Not denying its impact on the world of animation: Akira (the Movie) isn't THAT good
Really interesting and defining the genre for its time, first and final sequence were spectacular, in the middle the writing could've done a better job at explaining the premise. To be fair that was a lot of manga fit into just two hours. Regardless it changed animation forever!
One Punch Man: Wanpanman (2015)
Season 1 Review
Awesome fight scenes, great satire but the whole concept that every fight ended with one punch was the same reason why the show was fundamentally flawed, no tension and felt no reason to care about characters when god literally would end it every time.
Death Note: Desu nôto (2006)
Review of episode 1-25
1-14 were insane, didn't really pick up again until episode 24/25. Here's the issues I spotted: in 1-14 L was able to pinpoint Light based on the most minute evidence, then after that light and L team up (the two smartest people in this universe) and they can't even figure out who Kira is when its 1 out of the 8 business men in a boardroom. Not to mention these businessmen weren't nearly as cunning as Light's Kira. After months of getting nowhere it was Misa that ended up doing the most even though she was the least intelligent. L's death wasn't as satisfying as it should've been because it was at the hands of Rem more so that it was Light.
Vinland Saga (2019)
Japanese Vikings ._.
Episode 4-15 is some of the best cinema I've ever seen, then they stop following Thorfinn nearly as much and it just wasn't the same afterwards, was still really well done but the only character that you could actually root for that wasn't a disgusting human being was Thorfinn, that's why watching him strive for revenge against the injustice made against his father was so enjoyable.
Violet Evergarden (2018)
Breathtakingly Beautiful...
A beautiful show, wonderful score that fits perfectly, very pretty art style and cinematography. My only complaint and this one really comes down to personal preference; I thought some of episodes, mostly earlier ones were a little uneventful or just non exciting events just too close to the normal things you'd see day to day in life. Personally, if that's the case I might as well just go out into the real world because I watch the show as a means of escapism. However that's barely a criticism that again, is subjective based on what you like, its just a powerful, beautiful show and episode 7 was my favourite :)
Yakusoku no Neverland (2019)
Season 1 Brief Review
A really, really good show, besides characters it nailed practically everything. I 'll just go through the shortcomings because otherwise this review would take a long time. Norman didn't have any flaws (A Mary Sue) and had nowhere for him to go as a character. They could've added depth to Ray's quite grey character with the revelation of Isabella being his mom early on, having him stuck in a "divide between friends and family, ray might have had to endure the particular brand of resentment associated with learning of his own Mother's true intentions." However I liked the way they revealed it and it landed quite well having it previously foreshadowed. Didn't really foreshadow Ray's intention of suicide early on, his justification was great, not to mention Emma was the emotionally intelligent one and she would've picked it, not the perfect Norman at it again. Only minor complaints that would've made this GREAT show even better.
Mob Psycho 100 (2016)
Masterful use of different art and animation styles, falls apart almost everywhere else...
Mob Psycho 100 does a masterful job of utilizing different art and animation styles for comedic effect, visual storytelling and expressionist sequences. The show is very meta and satirical, often making fun of various ways of time changes like using a montage to make fun of a montage. This is just an example but this happened quite frequently: making fun of poorly written plot development to get away with poorly written plot development to make it seem satirical and meta when in reality its just hiding the fact its lazy, sloppy writing. The characters were all well done, they all had good motivations and grounded backstories. Dialogue was pretty weak, very often required blatant exposition to fill in the gaps. Reigen was easily my favourite character, I could watch the entire show revolve around him, he was a really great character. Mob was my least favourite. Like alot of other anime protagonists, his character just revolves around the fact that he's nice. When in reality, his shallow character lacked strength, resolve and personality. Not to mention they never established his limit and the entire time watching the show I never felt any tension because I knew he would pull some extra power out of his a** and win the day. Also when another character was caught in a tricky situation with no way of getting out, there was also no tension because I knew something would come out of the blue and rescue them at the last minute even if it was out of the realms of likelihood. There was never worry about whether this character might die or not. The show establishes that when they put their barrier up, espers are safe from harm, however there were so many times when they didn't have their barrier up and would go flying through concrete pillars and be fine. When human characters survive things well beyond human capability it just pulls the audience out of their immersion because its gone beyond the realms of reality and believability, also the stakes of living and dying have gone out the window because now the audience has no idea what these "human" bodies can withstand. Another important note is that early in the show, 100s of thousands, if not millions of dollars worth of damage would be caused in a fight and there were no real world consequences. Quite a lot of the shows moral compass and philosophy is filled with holes, however episode 16 and 17 nails it, exploring the idea that Mob is only the protagonist in this story because he was born in fortunate circumstances, having been in different circumstances without good people around him, he too would be the villain. A great quote about the difference in ideologies in good and evil from these episodes is: "I've noticed that you tend to refrain from using your powers in your personal life, I assume you're trying to become a better person by focusing on your social skills rather than your abilities. How very noble of you. BUT ONLY THE FORTNUATE IN LIFE WOULD EVEN HAVE THAT IDEA. Shows like lightly you take the real world." This show is certainly overrated, maybe people rate it on enjoyability and comedy than actually properly criticizing it as cinema, regardless, 8.5 is far too high.
Sam O'Nella Academy (2016)
You spend the whole time laughing your ass off you dont even realise how much you learn!
Sam O'Nella is the perfect balance between comedy and teaching, both with his voice and with his visuals. Salmonella does a better job and retaining information in your brain after a 5 minute video than months of schooling could attempt. His channel is obviously entertainment but if you take a seriously look at his videos he has achieved a genuinely impressive feat of developing the perfect formula to teach.