rampant thoughts

VIOLET EVERGARDEN — The metallic rust of old typewriters with their perpetual cacophony. The soft breath of young girls. An enticing work of art dosed with aesthetically beautiful illustrations, Violet evergarden not only charms its viewers, but also attempts to tug at their heartstrings with carefully weaved emotions.

In Violet evergarden, we had nothing short of the gorgeous animations completed by KyoAni. It’s almost like an exquisitely drawn painting — every second had me wanting to capture the mesmerising sights and frame it up delicately. It’s no wonder why this anime went viral the moment it was released; every single scene was all over social media.

This story takes its scene in the Victorian era — where we follow the memories and footsteps of a girl ruined from war, yet searching for her own place in life. A literal doll, a machine, without a master. Violet writes her own adventures and travels, and throughout the series, we get a glimpse of many different people tackling their own humane problems — much unlike the apathetic Violet herself.

It’s a story of Violet’s own wishes. The girl born only from the recognition of being a tool, she now wants to venture on her own and find out what those precious words mean to her. Every new episode is a new journey — I loved its episodic pacing at the start, and the characters themselves bring out new emotions that Violet herself cannot hope to understand.

However, behind that curtain of beauty lies an abundance of faults. Violet Evergarden is a story with so much hidden potential, yet the producers decided to tear down the light novel and construct a different story with all its truth laid bare. It’s not a bad thing — if you did it right. But if you’re here for a story as beautiful as it’s animation, you’re sorely mistaken.

Yes, this anime revolves entirely around Violet’s adventures. It could’ve been a story where she realises the meaning of her existence. It could’ve been a story unravelling all her faults and the truth in her life. Yet, we were presented with too much on the world itself to clearly develop Violet and bring this anime’s potential to light. Like Kimi no na wa, it concentrates on the wrong things to build up an outstanding plot.

It’s not only its lack of focus, but also Violet herself, that made this show one with such wasted potential. See, her adventures are meaningful. The characters show Violet things she cannot comprehend. Emotions that can fill her void. But no, despite its plentiful amount of time, this anime made out protagonist to be one that remains static, not even realising the things that go on around her. She listens, but because it was so poorly done, she’s almost like a robot droning on and on about wanting to understand what those three words meant. It’s almost infuriating at times, how they try to pull your heartstrings with such an underdeveloped character.

Violet is plenty bland and monotone at the start, brimming with so much room for development. Yet, this show wasted it’s beauty completely and sorely missed the true part of where they should be focusing on. With Violet, they show would’ve been much more touching than it is now.

ALL IN ALL, I cannot emphasise how much hidden potential this show has. It had too much time, and devoted it to episodes that could’ve furthered her development but did not. In the end, everything was pushed to the end where we see an ending that is only half-touching and half-emotionless due to the first half of this show. I felt really disappointed. Violet Evergarden has so many flaws, and KyoAni missed its mark completely.

ratings =

setting & world-building | 7.5

plot & pacing | 4

characters | 3

overall | 5.5

thanks so much for reading through xx

THE PROMISED NEVERLAND — An enthralling anime centred around dark themes, this Winter 2019 series launched itself into a spectacular start with it’s tight grip on our attention. A psychological film focused on in a fairly unique setting, how far did it go?

The Promised Neverland starts blissfully — with elated orphans enclosed in an orphanage known as Grace Field House, they live their days contentedly — until a dark secret regarding their lives is uncovered by our two protagonists. Everyone survives until they reach the age of 12, before they are transported away by demons who feed on their minds.

Having read both the manga and watched the anime, the overall setting and world-building was brilliant. Yes, they did leave out some minor questions, but despite that, the idea and execution itself was extremely well-done. In the manga, we’d get a glimpse of it’s history and the dystopian world’s past; a beautiful addition to the unique ideas we had. What makes this anime/manga more interesting is the way their society is built on. We want to know what happened, what exactly is beyond those walls. In a way, The Promised Neverland achieves thrilling it’s audiences successfully.

Being both a thriller and psychological anime, this shows brings out a new light not many shows do — with it’s continuous mind games and heart-pounding discoveries. The first few episodes were exceptionally polished, bringing us light on a shaking discovery and a ton of those ‘what if?’ thoughts. In contrast to the manga, the anime took a slower pacing to leave us not only hanging, but also to further wring out our hair in frustration. That’s the thing — this show become too much of a drag.

Simplistic tricks, double, no, triple-crosses and things that ran on behind our backs — in the end, the later episodes exhibited a final tug on our minds with your typical, mystery tricks. It pulled almost every overused string in the book, until it went from unpredictable to well, basically predictable. At one point of time, I even came up with a whole theory that just went down the drain as the author closed it up so simplistically. I can’t argue with the typical-mystery-ploys they pulled, but as someone who was really impressed with it’s first few episodes, they really brought it down.

In the manga though, I didn’t really noticed the stereotypical writing, and I’ve chalked it down to its pacing. The manga went in a quick, elaborate showing — pulling fast ploys before moving on to the next unhesitatingly. Compared to the anime’s delayed timings to hold the big reveals, the manga shoved it straight up, unthinkingly. That was most likely what covered it all up and made the manga so much more enjoyable than the anime.

I can understand why the producers wanted to drag it out, as sacrificing the evident mistakes for more plot tension is a clear-cut way to keep viewer hooked. Though, I thought that the fast-paced mind games were so much more suited to be carried out quickly like the manga had done.

The Promised Neverland holds an abundant cast — although it concentrates more on our three protagonists. Throughout the show, it was engaging to watch them fight and struggle, but I felt that they lacked quite a bit of depth, especially Emma. Both Ray and Norman had their own motives going for them, something that we could more or less empathise with compared to Emma’s, whose sole goal was to get all the children out of this prison.

Not all characters in anime have to be realistic, but The Promised Neverland is one of those psychological thrillers that would go exceptionally well with characters people could empathise and understand with. Compared to the others, Emma lacks any actual substance. It’s not as far as to say that we wouldn’t care about what happens to her, but more of feeling drawn to Ray and Norman as characters. I mean, it’s fine to say that she has a good heart and all, but don’t let that be the only thing she possesses.

As for the other characters, Sister was more of a plot device, Isabella felt like a character created to expose us to the nature of this world, and Gilda as well as Don was only there to create more tension and trouble.

The actual annoyances come later in the series — where the characters actually get shocked that their plan was discovered without considering the fact that they were all in plain sight whilst discussing their plans all along. There are more evident plot holes that surfaced in the anime, with supposedly ‘smart’ kids committing unfathomable mistakes even dull people like me wouldn’t do if they were carrying out secret plans.

OVERALL, for one that watches the anime without reading the manga, this show is evidently a great catch. Honestly, I would recommend the manga as it possesses so much more potential as compared to its adapted film. This show explores the depths of one’s mind and it’s fairly well executed in terms of grasping the overarching idea.

ratings (for the anime) =

theme & setting | 9

plot development | 5 [& 8/manga]

characters | 7

overall | 6.5 [& 8/manga]

i actually had quite a hard time reviewing this as i had a lot of mixed feelings xx

HYOUKA — Curiosities and mysteries, unveiled one after another, unendingly, beautifully. This describes what this 2012 masterpiece by KyoAni has to offer — a dose of school life coupled with daily riddles to keep you on your toes.

Hyouka is set around our four members of the school’s literature club, exploring one girl’s infinite curiosities that eventually shoves Oreki into the spotlight. He begins solving numerous mysteries spun from small situations, and occasionally, a web of threads.

Its episodes are brilliantly executed — following an episodic pace, it’s not only well-accomplished, but it also manages to keep you engaged. That’s quite a feat for an anime that takes its time to set the atmosphere up and quell the excitement, and then repeat its never-ending cycle again. I liked how thrilling it was — although the episodes were long at times, there was definitely a consistent flow that kept to its small, school mysteries — it did branch out into longer, more intricate webs at times, but I found that those were the most engaging stories to watch unfold.

Periodically, we’d get to witness a beautifully crafted tale that takes its form in unexpected ways. Because what makes Hyouka so interesting is the satisfaction when the true plot is revealed. It’s your typical mystery, perhaps even more dull — but you’re given as much information and knowledge as the characters. Sometimes, it’s easy to see the pattern, and others not. Perhaps you too, have already spotted the key clues to solving it — yet you can’t put your finger on what connects it all. See, this is where Hyouka excels at; drawing lines and helping you see the bigger picture with the exact same data you possess.

But, as impressively stunning as it is, Hyouka isn’t for everyone. True, there are some mysteries that feel utterly redundant, when a simple question or common sense could’ve saved us so much trouble and dialogue it took to ‘uncover’ it. Yet, it goes beyond that. To people who constantly delve more into action and fantasy, it’s possible that Hyouka can be extremely boring at times, with uneventful actions and mysteries that weren’t even necessary.

To top it off, most of the characters felt extremely, well, distant. Your average everyday anime characters. Especially the incomprehensible actions by Oreki. If he’s so set on conserving energy, how could he constantly fall prey to peer pressure? There are a lot of things that just don’t add up, but apparently, we have to accept it, because, well, plot convenience. I get that Chitanda felt annoying at times to some people, but I don’t have any alarming issues — it’s just the way this show portrays her. It’s like her only defining character trait is being curious, and it felt extremely wasted on someone like her.

I liked how some episodes concentrated on solving the mysteries and exploring their own feelings, but the romantic relationship the author was gutting for was really, really not there. I barely know Chitanda at this point of time, and excluding her personality and all, she didn’t have any vibrant flavours that reminded me of her. Their relationship felt like best friends at most and I was reluctant to leave it further than that.

Other than that, we were constantly bombarded with monotone dialogue that represented the characters, but totally off-point actions that said otherwise. It got extremely off-hand at a certain point that they should’ve just developed Oreki’s mindset instead of him sticking to the ‘conserving energy’ ideals that weren’t funny anymore at this point of time.

I’ve reiterated this more than once, but the large arcs (especially the school festival one) contributed some character development and pushed around some tangled thoughts that eventually tied everything up perfectly — mystery and all. The pacing was impeccably timed to set a moment we all waited for, and it unraveled itself in an almost unseen way that went ignored most of the time. It wasn’t too slow, or too fast, which was a good thing.

ALL IN ALL, Hyouka is your average slice of life — with a twist. A high school mystery combined with well-thought-of arcs, this show is definitely one you should watch. I can’t guarantee that you’ll really enjoy it, as it takes more than a few episodes to really get settled in, but the overall stories were sometimes so exaggerated that it was both interesting and hilarious at the same time.

ratings =

engagement & setting | 8.5

characters | 5

plot & pacing | 8.5

overall | 7.5

thanks for reading through! xx

MEKAKUCITY ACTORS — Better known as Kagerou Project, this anime flaunts a wide, diverse cast — characters that certainly possess a flair for everything they do. This show takes an unusual approach in it’s presentation and execution, but in a way, it’s plenty original and unique on its own.

Adapted from the manga inspired by Kagerou project, this anime revolves around the ‘Blindfold gang’ that seeks out members with similar abilities. Simple enough at the start, and the phrasing makes it sound like a mediocre, just-your-average film.

This anime boasts a different perception of pacing — it jumps back and forth at times, relaying the actions that happens before showing you an entirely contrasting point of view from another character present during the occurrence of the original scene. It’s one of the first I’ve seen, and coupled with its quick little theatre-like films at the end of each episode, Mekakucity actors takes its own, independent way to push its ideas and show us a completely different angle in watching the scenes unfold.

But the continuous reverse and play episodes made this show exceedingly tiring to watch. It felt like a 24 episode series cut, chipped and squeezed into a mere 12 episodes. Mekakucity actors was filled with hastened episodes that loved to rewind, play and occasionally shoot in backstories no one cared about. The entire show was a drag — like it had absolutely no sense of time management. Sure, it tried to do something that could become really successful if pulled off right, but in the end, we ended up with scrambled last-minute feelings and packed episodes that eventually proved to be of no use to the story.

The thing about this anime is — you either love the pacing, or hate it entirely. It’s unique, but irrelevant. Creative, yet ineffective. As a result, you could say that the way this show was executed really led to its execution.

But, compared to anything else, the lack of actual direction made it increasingly annoying to watch. They took it leisurely at the start, fashioning subplots and other new questions that originated from the characters own arcs or even their backstories. Being completely honest, I was actually interested to see how much more the author could manage; shoving in the conclusions to these on top of the main plot. But no — we never got any of that. Mekakucity actors created tons of unresolved holes, but instead of solving that, they ignored it completely. We never knew what actually happened to Hiyori? The boy and his companion? So many questions, too many things just disappearing into thin air.

Now, we’re onto the point of has this anime actually achieved what it wanted to? Obviously, the answer is a no. It clearly spent so much time trying to develop their characters and make you empathise with them more before they could drop everything on you, but that was it. Though just the selected few, some of them were given concise backstories, but even Momo’s parts felt annoying to deal with at times because it made me wonder, what was the actual point of showing this to me? This show had characters with attitudes and personalities that were underdeveloped archetypes, and they consistently tried but failed with everything — character development, exposition and interaction.

You could literally search up any character, and I bet they had a huge chunk of information on their backstories. That’s basically what you get for shoving too much food in your mouth. They focused too much on the characters that had no actual impact on the main plot, leaving lesser time for characters like Marry or Kano. In fact, I don’t even think they even tried to explore their motives and reasons, which was why this show is so boring to watch.

To conclude the show, honestly, they rushed everything the main storyline was missing, with the author clearly thinking that the small childlike stories at the end of each episode was enough to help you draw the lines and give you a satisfying ending. That worked as a huge downfall to this anime, rendering us totally helpless as we ponder on what the backstories and mysteries were for. Yes, thank you for giving us an ending you thought was justifiable by linking it to some mini-theatre shows.

OVERALL, Mekakucity Actors is extremely boring and painful to watch. It literally makes you go a full circle and run back to the starting point when all you had to do was fast-forward to the last five minutes of the anime, and watch it from there. Hilarious and ludicrous, I know, but that’s all it is. Another anime that tried to handle too much than it could.

ratings =

setting | 4

plot & pacing | 3

characters | 5

overall | 4

thanks for reading through this long review xx

BEM — A mystery tale that focuses on three, different monsters all striving to become human, this anime surges into an intriguing start that encompasses lost ideals and cruel pain.

Bem revolves mainly across our main characters discovering their own emotions through the fractured society they live in. Questioning why humans would go that far to throw their humanity away just for power, Bem, Belo, and Bela each have their own little arcs that slowly unveils and tests their own emotions.

To me, this anime feels a lot like an unpolished fabrication of ideals. It presents itself in an episodic way, starting each episode fresh and ending it again with unresolved emotions. You can infer between the lines — a vague gauge on where this anime is heading. The plot itself carries little to none significance, to the point that some major topics get ignored and put on hold for ages, and by that, I mean episodes.

Its theme is steady, however, but you can still glimpse the disorganised fractions of numerous interpretations that eventually draw back onto the same line. Rigidly fixed together, I know. Yet somehow, that clutter still manages to bring itself back together. It’s not necessarily a good thing, and this show can be really messy sometimes.

On the other hand, the way the episodes carry themselves in an independent way simply destroys the entire mood. As mentioned before, each new start takes its own route to trace itself back to the beginning. I don’t see many psychological animes doing this, as it is a delicate way to push an episodic pacing — the risk of failure is more imminent compared to that of its success. And certainly, Bem’s irregular pacing is one of the reasons why we cannot fully appreciate the setting of this show.

But I’d say, the fault to this supernatural show lies mainly on its characters. Everything revolves around the three — and everything else is simply ignored. The reason why this show hasn’t captured our sympathy is due to the fact that its characters are written in an extremely bleak way. They state the yearn to become part of humanity; and yet the actions they take do not compel us to root for them. Take Bem for example. What’s his actual purpose wanting to be human? The show only grazes the bare minimum, and it does not further explore the potential of its nuanced meaning. Instead, it continuously repeats the want, the need, the craving so much that it becomes repeatedly annoying.

Bela, compared to the other two, possesses much more profound reasons to fight against her own demonic nature. Yet, her arcs do nothing to make us empathise with her, mainly due to the fact that it just touches and goes on many occasions. It’s all the same — something happens and for that, she despises herself. But the fact that the show doesn’t factor in the residual stress and impact doesn’t sit right; it’s continuous repetition without any development, reducing these episodes to meaningless arcs. Belo, on the other hand, showed more growth between the interactions that he had, so probably that’s why his character felt more comprehensible compared to that of Bela’s.

Characters don’t need to be relatable. In this anime’s case, they merely require a development that makes us feel more connected to them as a whole — yet being a show where the character’s values are what drives the plot, Bem felt extremely distant.

There were uninteresting characters with one defining trait clearly there for no apparent reason or to simply move the plot (take Summers or Dave, for instance), an actual plot that did not progress and instead left everything stalled evidently for the point of focusing on character, and a nuanced theme so dry that it did not provide any context.

The animation was horrible, and them transforming felt like the ripoff from power rangers or something. It vaguely reminded me of Attack on Titan, just a much more low-grade version that was absolute cringe to watch.

ALL IN ALL, Bem felt extremely underdeveloped. I felt that with more budget and editing, the writing and execution could’ve been something truly great. For now, it’s main theme was a drag to listen to, and I certainly can only recommend this if you’re looking for some low-quality entertainment. It wasn’t popular to begin with, and it certainly doesn’t deserve to be.

ratings =

theme & setting | 2

plot development | 2

characters | 3

overall | 3

thanks for taking the time to read through this review xx