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Re: Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu

By glancing over it, it just looks like any other show where the protagonist is pulled inside a game and he/she has to play their way out of it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. After clearing 5-6 episodes you start to get the gist of the show. Subaru character keeps on developing and honestly, I enjoyed his character development.
The story progresses from being a jolly to dark to macabre. It does not lose its pace and gets everything done in 25 episodes.
In the beginning, you will feel out of place while watching the show, and it will start to ... make sense as you go further into the show it starts to get more clearer and clearer. I like this kind of story pattern although it’s irksome and confusing sometimes.

Now comes the qualm I’ve with the show. Re: Zero needs Season 2. It leaves more questions unanswered like, why was Subaru pulled into this world? Why was he cursed by Satella, to begin with? Why can he not die? Every time Subaru tries to tell anyone about the curse Satella reaches for his heart? Why doesn’t she wants anyone to know? Why’s Subaru such a fucking thick head that he chose Emilia over Rem?

I hope White Fox makes a Season 2 and even if they don’t I think I can live with the ending. But they should.

5 Centimetres per Second is really hitting close to home and I’m sure melancholy is touching everyone as the movie traces the 3rd chapter to the end.

The movie reminded me of the time when I fell in love for the first time. It was sweet, pure, exhilarating, innocent and we thought it we will always be together until we weren’t.

I’ve seen Kimi no Na wa, The Garden of Words and now 5 Centimetres per Second and I think I see a theme and a pattern in how Shinkai Makoto puts his work together. All 3 of these movies dance around themes like lost and found ... or longing or separation. Shinkai Makoto explores what happens when there’s a distance between 2 people and how their dynamics change over a period of time.
It’s interesting and probably more relatable because that is what happens IRL. Separation is a part of life and whenever I see a particularly a romantic anime they forget to explore that aspect.
I think all these 3 movies explores the anxiety, the unknown, the tiny thread holding a relationship, the bittersweetness, the despair and the closure and the move on that happens whenever there is a distance between 2 people.

What did I just watch? No, really! How come I never stumbled upon this delicious piece of art that kept getting better as the movie progressed?
Kimi no na wa. and Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo but the level of details Makoto Shinkai pulled in this movie is just brilliant. From reflections on the floor soaked in water to water droplets on any object to steam flying above a hot cup of coffee to light bouncing off the face, this movie is just a pure visual treat. I think Kotonoha no Niwa's animation was never made around the storyline; the storyline was conceived around rain. This ... gave animators even more creative freedom to do more with the details. Make it more realistic while keeping it true to what anime is and focus on minute details that you never thought you wanted to see but now you want to see those everywhere; like, a one-take shot of shimmering water droplets falling on the ground and breaking into countless tiny shimmering droplets falling on the ground again. I wouldn’t be mad if the plot of Kotonoha no Niwa was utter gibberish. The stunning visuals and the breathtaking attention to details take everything away. This is one of those movies that is not meant to tell a story but to give you exceptional eye orgasm.

I think a great anime lies somewhere around the intersection of a good storytelling, good visuals and a good audio. Meaning, they have a good story, a good animation and a good audio (dialogues and other sounds) but there are some that perform better in just one are gets ruin immediately. Somehow Makoto Shinkai jacked up Kotonoha no Niwa with top-notch visual and audio steroid and still managed to tell a good story.

Makoto Shinkai managed to tell a romantic story about a 15-year-old high school boy, Takao and 27 years old high school teacher, Yukino without making it weird. It was sweet and looked innocent in some ways. I’ve watched enough anime to not feel weird about this love story.

I feel like everyone should watch this movie, not for the story but for the high production quality and mouth-watering visuals.

I picked up Devilman-Crybaby after watching Gigguk’s review and I’m glad I first watched the review otherwise I’d have been like, “WTF am I watching?” Its animation that you will not expect, LSD-ish and I loved it.

While watching I realized either this series is entirely too short or I’m enjoying it way more than I expected. I did a little reading and learned it’s an old work which was couldn’t really translate well into anime in the previous attempt.

Netflix re-make of Death Note went horribly wrong but this is just pure quality and joy. The anime stayed true to the source material and colours ... and animation topped everything off.

This is not your regular anime and I’m sure not everyone would like it but those who did would love to see more work and story like this.

The creative freedom Netflix is giving to the directors and animators is just bonkers, and I love it. This wouldn’t have been possible if anyone else would have picked it up. Netflix FTW! Keep investing in anime Netflix. I hope you do Berserk too. The recent Berserk animation is shit.

Let’s talk about the music. While reading through the reddit discussion I learned the form of music used in here is called Synthwave and it is bold, it goes with the theme, it sets up the pace before or during the scenes. It gives a psychedelic vibe considering drugs and sex are used in this anime like it’s a walk in the park and I love it. No other anime other than I think Berserk can pull off the kind of thumpy music Devilman Crybaby has.

Devilman - Crybaby OST — https://youtu.be/LKdmzriKsic

This is a show I’ll watch again and 10/10 would want everyone to see.

I reviewed 91 days here. https://xss.now.cc/reviews.php?id=272640

I'm not very big on OVAs considering how much there it is on my plan to watch list.

The only reason I watched this OVA is that of 91 Days and how awesome the show is. And not surprisingly this is a peek into the life of the Dons and how it all began. I think this OVA ties everything together with the main series.

I like how none of them knew how things will change in the future. Testa Lagusa has no idea Vincent Vanetti will kill him and his entire family except Avilio. Ganzo will betray Vanetti and ... Orco will be a big food reviewer before Vinod Dua, Instagram and Zomato made the food reviewers mainstream; he is still craving for Lasagna.

I like how no one has anything and they are climbing their way up the <i>mafia ladder</i> and how each of their relationships is with one another. In the parent story, 91 Days, while stuck on bed waiting to die Vincent Vanetti tells Nero how much he regrets killing Testa. I think this special gives closure to what we never knew about. The pasts, what brought them together, the regret and the struggle.


I'll recommend everyone to watch this OVA after they're done with the parent story.

I did not expect much from 91 Days but surprisingly it is a good mafia revenge anime with good animation.

Right off the back the colours chosen scheme to develop 91 Days signify an older time. A time when cars and telephones were in its nascent stage. The warm colours give a soothing feeling of nostalgia even without living in that time.

The story is about Angelo Lagusa living in Lawless town whose family was murdered by 4 members of the Vanetti family 6 years ago because of a power struggle between the three families, Vanetti, Galassia and Orco. 

Someone mysterious sends him a letter ... with the name of people responsible for his family slaughter. Now he is back for revenge. Sweeping slowly into Vanetti family; befriending Nero Vanetti and killing everyone. No mafia is safe with the plan Angelo is brewing. Angelo plays everyone and I love how he did it.

Generally, I’ve to watch some episodes again (like Black Lagoon) to completely grasp the story or character because a lot of things go hand in hand with this kind of show but surprisingly I was able to follow up everything to the T.

Just when I thought that this series won't get any better this episode surprised me yet again. I really enjoyed the ride and I loved this open ending. It leaves so much to your imagination and can satisfy the most people.

This is one of those anime that I’ll keep and watch some years later and will learn more about the plot and subplot.

7/10 would recommend anyone to watch it if you do not want a whole lot of expansive storyline and some good classic animation.

Koe no Katachi — as someone who was bullied in the school I can see what message the movie is bringing and the concept is new and fresh. Ishida was a bully to Nishimiya in elementary school. His friends supported him and when the principal put down the foot, he was isolated and axed.

Later he was on the receiving end of bullying; his so called friends were an asshole, let’s be honest about it. Now he is trying to amend what mistakes he made during his elementary school with Nishimiya. He has his own struggles too, tried to commit suicide, shrugged of by classmates, ... has a hared time looking into people’s eyes and more.

Overall I love the movie

Zankyou no Terror—

Mystery and psychological dramas have peaked my interest since I saw Monster. This 11 episode series proves that this genre of anime can be done in less episode but I’m not sure if it could be done in 11.

The series took off with a great story but later it sort of abandoned its key mystery element and after the end goal of Nine and Twelve were revealed I felt it was such a BS plot. They wanted to bring the attention of the entire world to the Athena Plan. How they were isolated and experimented on as a child, how it shaped them, ... took away their childhood and to bring people responsible for this to justice.

Now here comes the BS part; both Nine and Twelve were gifted and highly intelligent, I think it was incredibly stupid what they did. Granted nobody got seriously hurt but planting bombs, creating panic in public is no way to draw attention; after creating all the hype about their personality and maturity they act like teenagers but on a psychotic level. I feel the initial plot was great but it later became stupid and killed all the hype that was built during the initial episodes.

Lisa was underutilised in the series. I feel like she was in the show just to show Stockholm syndrome. I wish they had explored this more and made Lisa a proper accomplice or made her do a little more than just a damsel in distress.

Overall, I liked the show. The animation was great and for an 11 episode anime it did a great job in exploring all the facets that the audience was supposed the know; had this been a 21-25 episode anime, the plot could have been a little better and characters would have had more depth to them.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the show. 6/10

I’m a sucker for Japanese anime that derive its root from history. I love a good sword fight too. Sword of the Stranger had everything. It has the old Japanese culture with one of the best sword fight that I have seen in such a long time. For some reason Bleach made me a sword fight fan.

I’ve already given the rating above which tells how much I enjoyed the movie. I love the Chinese element too which was an indication of history that China and Japan shares together. Animation is great. The fight sequences leave an impact and scale in your mind. It’s very ... hard to do that. Now when I compare it to the sword fight sequences I’ve seen till date, Sword of the Stranger has a certain je ne sais quoi about it.

Altogether I’ll recommend this movie.

Humans are inherently complex and Death Parade tells us exactly why and how. I absolutely love shows that have their roots in some kind of philosophy and are explored in a very different manner. The idea of passing judgement has been around for a very long time; bleach was loosely based on this principle but Death Parade does it in a very different fashion that is captivating.

The idea of judging people whether they’ll get reincarnated or go to a void by making them play a game with their “life” on stake and creating certain extreme situations that will force them to show their worse ... side seems pretty straightforward. But Decim starts having difficulty when people start becoming complex which they actually are. Here comes the brilliance; the brilliance does not lie just in the idea of exploiting human emotions to get the best out of them; it lies in how Decim and Kurokami no Onna work in tandem to realise how deep is the each facet of human emotion. This is particularly an important concept where writer let’s you think in a certain direction and then rebuttals it in the same episode with the complexity of human brain.

I love how Decim evolves during the 12 episodes. Reminds me of kids learning to speak. His behaviour is now challenging how arbiter pass judgement. Which is good because more people are realising how bizarre it is to judge someone without comprehending the situateion that forced them in the first place to carry out the act. Kurokami no Onna played a huge role and her ice skate scene is easily the highlight of the show.

I highly doubt Oculus will allow any change in the system but it will make great fodder for season 2 if they plan to make one. I think keeping the series open end is a better way to go.

Mnemosyne: Mnemosyne no Musume-tachi is another anime that explores another deep and philosophical question, “Is it a good idea to live forever?” I wish to find more anime that explore such topics with depth. If you can suggest me something of similar nature, I’m up for the marathon.

I’d totally recommend you to watch Death Parade.