fantasy Archives - Page 4 of 6

In Another World with my Smartphone review – Oddly watchable

I might go beyond “oddly watchable” and term it “strangely enjoyable” actually. In Another World With My Smartphone (Isekai wa Smartphone to tomo ni) is a “hero in another world” show that plays the trope 100% by the book. The hero is smart, popular, rich, powerful and manages to solve everyone’s problems almost instantly without breaking a sweat.

Normally I would post a blurb from Wiki or something, but it’s even easier this time. When the show opens, Mochizuki Touya has been accidentally killed by “God.” As compensation “God” reincarnates him in a magical world with superpowered stats in every way imaginable. Plus he has his smartphone with Internet (but no e-mail) and mapping functions, which he eventually finds ways to use in increasingly broken ways. For example he can use the camera + magic to look through walls, he can use the map + magic to hit every enemy in an area and so on.

The fun of In Another World with my Smartphone comes from seeing just how much more broken Touya can get. Especially since he can use any spell in the world just by hearing about it – and can use it better and faster and longer than whoever he learned it from. It’s even more interesting once he starts to combine and stack various abilities.

And probably the best part is how he uses the simplest spells, especially Slip and Aports, when you would expect him to burst out something flashy. It’s like “I don’t even have to get serious any more.” Every week it’s like “Okay, what overwhelming challenge is Touya going to trivialize this week and how?”

As I mentioned back in my Konosuba review, the isekai genre became so common that focus turned to subversions of the idea. When it comes to anime adaptations now, it’s rare to find the trope being played straight without some kind of twist.

That’s nice and all, but what are the original lovers of the genre to do? What about those fans who want to see a hapless everyday dude get all the girls and kill all the enemies and have everyone fawn over him for no reason at all? Who thinks of their needs? So I think a show like In Another World with my Smartphone is important once in a while to remind anime watchers of what they’re missing/not missing depending on what side of the fence they’re on.

For my part I enjoyed this show a lot more than I thought I would. The complete lack of tension and threat made for a very easy watch. Around the same time I started In Another World with my Smartphone, I also tried the first episodes of Made in Abyss and Children of the Whales. I thought both animes were excellent, but heavy and stressful. You have to be ready to go in deep with shows like that. Meanwhile Smartphone is like popcorn, light meaningless fluff. You pop one into your mouth and then another and before you know it’s all gone. Simple stuff.

Not that it doesn’t have its flaws. The worst part is the growing cast of girls – though again this is what genre fans watch the show for. The girls are all generic, forgettable cute girls who immediately fall for Touya and are eternally in awe of his battle prowess. But they’re not above bossing him around either.

It’s all stuff you’ve seen in a million anime series before. You don’t need to watch this show just to get that fix. IMO every second wasted on the antics of these girls and their petty jealousies should have been spent showcasing the further superhuman antics of Touya-sama.

Furthermore, more girls invariably means more opportunities for fanservice. The show can’t decide whether to make Touya a pervert or not so sometimes he’s leering at naked bodies, sometimes he’s anxiously averting his gaze. But while he can look away, the viewer is still forced to watch stuff like a random groping of a randomly introduced character, a very boring and pointless beach episode and a supposed-to-be sexy encounter with some poor misused slimes. We won’t even get into the amount of innuendo, which admittedly isn’t as bad as it could have been.

On the plus side, at least the issue of who Touya will end up with is resolved by the end of the show, which is more than I can say for 90% of all animes, harem or otherwise.

Overall I would rate In Another World with my Smartphone a 6/10. It gets top marks for lightness and easy-of-watchability, a term I just made up but will probably use more often because it’s something I look out for in anime. It also gets high marks for the happy atmosphere and bright visuals. More high marks for the otaku wish fulfillment factor, and I suppose the girls are all cute if that’s your kind of thing. It gets a big fat zero for just about everything else though. If you want an overpowered fantasy protagonist with a harem, this is your show. If not, stay far away.

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! Season 1 anime review

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!, most sensibly abbreviated Konosuba is a light novel by Natsume Akatsuki that was adapted to two seasons of anime in 2016-2017. I only watched the first 10-episode season, which was 10 episodes too many and I’m not even sure why I stuck it out that long.

Summary (from Wiki): Following an untimely and embarrassing death, Kazuma Satō, a Japanese teenage shut-in NEET, meets a goddess named Aqua, who offers to reincarnate him in a parallel world with MMORPG elements. Despite being offered a godlike item or ability to use in this new world, Kazuma, following some provocation, chooses Aqua herself to accompany him to the town of Axel, quickly finding her absent-mindedness to be less than beneficial. With Aqua unable to return to the afterlife until the Devil King is defeated, the two form a party and recruit two other members; an explosion-obsessed magician named Megumin and a masochistic paladin named Darkness.

As I mentioned in my last post on Tsuujou Kougeki (I’m not typing the full title out, gimme a break), the trend these days is towards subversions and deconstructions of the “hero goes to another world” genre. In Konosuba the twist is minor – instead of Kazuma becoming overpowered like other heroes are implied to have done, he has to start from level one and work his way up normally. It’s just a minor setback really, because we all know in the long run he’s going to end up rich and powerful anyway. And besides, Aqua has a cheathax that prevents him from dying for real, so he’s essentially immortal. That’s overpowered in and of itself.

What I liked about Konosuba: The world of the game is very bright and colorful. The land is largely peaceful, the people are fairly friendly, the food looks delicious and in general it looks like a nice place to live.

I also like shows that deal with the practical “what are we going to eat and where are we going to sleep” issues of otherworldly life. It’s a big achievement for the team when they finally get upgraded from living in stables to living in a deserted mansion.

It’s interesting to see how a team with such wacky but powerful characters manages to gel and work together to defeat the powerful opponents they occasionally have to face.

What I disliked about Konosuba: The trashy fanservice and perverted unfunny humor. The goddess Aqua doesn’t wear underwear and prances around in a “dress” barely long enough to be called a short top. If you heard that and thought “Woo hoo!” this is the show for you. Otherwise it just gets annoying, not just Aqua but also other characters like Darkness and the succubi.

Darkness is especially annoying because she’s always writhing around thinking perverted things whether the situation calls for it or not. Usually not. And Kazuma uses his stealing skills to steal panties… Ranma 1/2 ended 20 years ago, dude.

There isn’t much progress made towards finding and beating the Demon Lord in season 1. Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! is more a slice of perverted life show with occasional battles than an RPG-based action show. It’s a good watch if you find fanservice funny or interesting or enjoy constant innuendo. Fans might say “There’s more to the show than that!” but a week after finishing this show, only the slimy frogs, the battle against Verdia and the Destroyer and the fanservice scenes (succubi, Darkness’s wild imagination, Kazuma’s panty stealing) come to mind when I try to remember anything. This really isn’t my sort of things so I’ll pass on season two. Next!

Thoughts on Tsuujou Kougeki ga Zentai Kougeki de Nikai Kougeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?

I’ve only read the free sample pages of Tsuujou Kougeki ga Zentai Kougeki de Nikai Kougeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka? provided by Fantasia Books and don’t intend to read any more, but that was enough to form a general opinion. The intention of the free sample is to help the reader decide if they want to read any further, after all, and 70 or so pages of a book is a pretty substantial freebie. This post will contain a few spoilers, so read chapter one and two if you haven’t already.

On to the meat. We all know other world/isekai light novels are all the rage these days. Every other LN features a hero ending up in another world somehow where he somehow becomes overpowered and a chick magnet and all the other otaku fantasy wish fulfillment tropes that the genre is so well-known for. Other world stories are so common these days that’s it’s hard for new books to make a dent – unless they either subvert or deconstruct the genre (getting increasingly common these days) or add some kind of spin or gimmick.

Enter Tsuujou Kougeki – Do You Like Moms Whose Normal Attacks Hit the Whole Enemy Party Twice? The twist here is that the main hero Masato does not go into the game world alone but is accompanied by his doting mom Mamako and it is Mamako, not Masato, who becomes the overpowered hero. It’s pretty funny how he gets so worked up and excited about being the Chosen One… then his mom just walks up and snags the two most powerful weapons in the game. Not only that, but the in-game guidebook suggests there might be other such overpowered mother-son pairs in the MMMMMORPG game. It would be interesting to meet them and see how things go.

So the unexpected swerve is an intriguing one, enough to get even a light novel avoider like me to read it. The problem is, it’s not quite what I expected. I should have smelled a rat when I saw the cutesy, fanservicey picture of Mamako on the cover. What I was expecting was a normal mom, late 30ish early 40ish soccer mom with the dignity and gravitas to match. Putting a regular, realistic everyday person into these kinds of situations is always much funnier and more interesting to me anyway.

Mamako is just annoying. Ditzy, clingy, manipulative, always ready to use tears to control her son if nothing will work. Doesn’t know jack about what’s going on, won’t share what little she does know, won’t listen to common sense advice but charges ahead without a thought in the world. Is this really a woman in her late 30s? How did she survive long enough to breed? The worst part is her fake crying to weasel her way into or out of situations. That’s just plain dirty. The excessive focus on her young appearance and on Masato’s brief moments of attraction to her are just pig-disgusting icing on a pig-disgusting cake.

Masato is no paragon of virtue either. He’s whiny and too cranky and rude towards his mother. I’m sure we can all remember times when we were a little sharper with our moms than we had meant to be, but to snap and snarl at her all chapter long is just… ick. And all that whining and crying just because his mom has better weapons instead of creating a build and learning skills to make the best of what he has. I blame Mamako for bringing him up wrong, that’s what. Plus he’s 15 years old, what can I say?

I didn’t read enough to get to know the loli merchant and the tsundere sage better, but I doubt they’ll be any better than the already-low level established. The tsundere in particular killed my desire to read any more. You know she’s just going to argue with Masato and beat him up all the time but she’s still going to “win” his affection over any better girls in the series anyway. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

TL;DR – The premise was interesting, but the ditzy personality of the mom and the whiny, cranky personality of her son ruined the whole thing for me. If they make an anime I might try an episode or two, but the interest I had in Tsuujou Kougeki is gone and probably isn’t ever coming back.

Overlord anime review – Nothing really happens

Overlord is yet another isekai anime about an overpowered main character who gets stuck in the world of a videogame. The slight twist on this one is that the main character Momonga a.k.a. Ains is an undead character with a legion of undead servants under him, all loyal to his every command and willing and eager to help him conquer the world.

The good: The slight twist on the setting and the characters’ slightly different morality makes Ains/Momonga and his companions a little more interesting than the “Must save everyone” hero-complex characters that populate 90% of these kinds of shows. For example Ains leaves NPCs dead when he could easily resurrect them (because resurrection would draw the wrong kind of attention). His party also murders another NPC party to keep them out of the way and so they can experiment on the corpses later. Of course these aren’t exactly commendable actions, but their unusual approach to the world makes them unpredictable and thus more interesting to watch.

Overlord also has a fair bit of action and combat – much more than I had expected given Ains’ goal of merely getting famous. I thought he would concentrate more on politics and magic, but he transforms into a warrior class and dukes it out with random mooks instead.

Which was a bit… sad. Sword-using main characters are a dime a dozen in isekai shows, and there’s already a famous dual-wielder out there. The battles Ains fought using his magic, items and skills were far more interesting than the hack-and-slash he used to take on some of the enemies. I hope future battles will focus more on his magical side and less on his Kirito-wannabe tendencies.

Last thing to praise Overlord for: the humor. Though the funniest moments came in the Pure Pure Pleiades specials and not the main series, the show still had some humorous moments. …Or so I thought, but now that I try to come up with examples, nothing really comes to mind. I’ll just say the show had a uniformly light, friendly and adventurous tone even when bodies were falling like raindrops all around. Even the death of some well-developed NPCs wasn’t all that depressing or saddening because the main characters take it all in stride.

The bad: Tasteless and needless vulgarity especially from the characters Shalltear and Albedo. And Cocytus in the specials. Also the show didn’t need to be quite so gory, it smacked of someone trying too hard to make the show hardcore and different from other fluffy game world shows.

The unsatisfying: Shalltear felt inadequate as the ‘final’ boss of an anime series. She was more or less a joke character throughout the show, then suddenly she’s being treated like this giant threat nobody can possibly beat no matter what? I didn’t buy it. Though I admit the final battle was suitably epic, the opponent should have been equally epic and not the previous butt of everyone’s jokes.

Bigger complaint, Overlord really should have been a 26-episode anime. At the end of the 13 episodes things have only really begun to get started. Ains has only just managed to get famous in one city. His bait ploy involving Sebas and Solution has just gotten underway. Powerful characters like Gazef and Brain have met. And most importantly, the only possible threat to Nazarick’s reign, the Slane Theocracy, has just started to show its true nature. Ains Ooal Gown and Slane are on a collision course without a doubt. What’s going to happen now?! Eh? Roll credits? Last episode? You want me to read the light novels to find out what happens next? NOOOOOOO!

Conclusion: Overlord is a fun show, but much too short. It has some good action, a charming cast and an overpowered but still somewhat relateable main character (the gap between Momonga’s scary appearance and diffident true nature always made me smile). If you can overlook the occasional gore and off-putting fanservice it is very much worth a watch.

The only downside is that season 1 will leave you itching for more. Which is what all first seasons are meant to do so I can’t complain. If you don’t mind light novels, I recommend reading the light novels instead so you don’t end up like me, champing at the bit for the next installment. Or you can join me in hoping for a sequel. Season 2 where?!

Sword Art Online II – Second half and overall impressions

I did another marathon session of the Excaliber arc of Sword Art Online II and a third session for the dreadfully boring Mother’s Rosario arc.

Excaliber arc: Short and sweet and everyone got a chance to shine. Klein used to be somewhat cool when he was the leader of his own guild in Aincrad, now he’s largely reduced to a ronery joke character. But his chivalry (or horniness) in the face of all common sense was the only thing that let them beat the boss so all’s well that ends well. Kirito was being Kirito as well, but characters like Tonkii, Sinon and Freyja all played their part to save the world of ALO from the evil frost giants.

Maybe it’s just me but I find arcs set in ALO disappointing because there’s no threat of permadeath. SAO and GGO have spoiled me. Still the light, fluffy mood and the fact that even if the frost giants do win and destroy ALO they can just move to another game makes Excaliber a nice sandwich arc between two heavier ones. And of course Kirito would end up with the most powerful sword in the game…

Mother’s Rosario: Long and bitter and too much about Asuna. When the show turned to focus on her I realized I don’t like her as much as I thought I did. Sinon for best girl again! I’m still all for the Kirito x Asuna pairing (like I have a choice) but as an individual Asuna is kinda of boring.

My problems with the arc: first, it could have been done in half the time. A lot of time was wasted just sitting around crying and moping and beating around the bush instead of talking about stuff. How many times did we have to see Asuna climbing down the stairs or staring at her mom? Or watch Siune and Yuuki covering things up instead of sharing their little secret? By the time they finally got round to the reveal I honestly didn’t care any more.

Furthermore the whole “guild of dying kids” thing was way too overwrought. It was trying way too hard to draw out tears by hook and by crook. “Oh look how sad it is, poor Yuuki, don’t you feel sorry for her? Hmm? Don’t you?” That’s why it wasn’t enough for them to just give her AIDS, they had to kill her mother and her father and her twin sister and have her house scheduled to be torn down juuuust for that extra little bit of tragedy.

I must have a heart of stone but I really didn’t care. Episode upon episode of “poor little Yuuki” was annoying to watch because I didn’t care about her in the first place. It’s one thing if an existing cast member gets stricken with something, or at least someone we’ve known in the show for a while, but introducing new characters so you can kill them off to develop other characters isn’t going to wring any tears or feels from me. Ho hum, was my general feeling throughout the arc.

The most excitement I got was from imagining at first that Asuna’s “fiance” Yuuya might be Yuuki in disguise, but that went out the window when she called Asuna “nee-chan.” Not to mention Asuna’s name and avatar look exactly like her so there’s no way her “fiance” wouldn’t recognize her in-game. So instead it’s just some random character brought into the game to teach Asuna that it’s important to talk to your mother by making her play a video game…? Or something like that was the moral. Anyway it worked and Asuna’s mother agrees to let her stay in her current school instead of transferring.

Honestly I thought Asuna’s mom was on the right track with a lot of things, especially with how much time Asuna spends in the virtual world versus the real world and the importance of studying hard and getting in a good college. Even the tightest group of online friends won’t last forever. In the end you still have to come back to real life. That’s why it’s good that they didn’t make Asuna-mama out to be an out-and-out monster. Just a little stubborn and quick to turn away from what she doesn’t want to see, just like her daughter. And in the end she doesn’t make a 100% sudden turnaround but is just a little bit softer towards Asuna. That’s nice. We really could have gotten to that point in 4 episodes instead of 7 but still nice Bad arc with a good end, more or less.

Overall: Just like the first season, Sword Art Online II had a cracking good first arc and then the second half of the season was just meh. Gun Gale Online is probably my favorite game in the show. As a bonus it introduced best girl Sinon. Good drama, action, even a bit of tragedy (poor Pale Rider) and a set up for future arcs. The second half was meh but had some character development for Asuna. And those of us who were disappointed at how chickified she had become since SAO got to see her actually do some stuff for a change. It was a good watch, an above-average show, more or less. I don’t know if I want to watch any more or not – I’m certainly not interested in the reading the light novels – but we’ll see.