Rate the Last Anime You Watched Out of 10

Aim for the Ace!
Some genres evolve beyond recognition over the decades. Others have such powerful foundational works that you can still see their DNA in shows made half a century later. Sports anime are very much the latter. The tropes that form the backbone of the genre today can be traced back to shows like Aim for the Ace! Far from feeling like sports anime have left it behind, this 1973 Osamu Dezaki classic is as riveting now as it must have been when first broadcast.

Indeed, the king of melodrama raises the tension to breathtaking heights. Though it follows the straightforward story of a girl learning the hard work and guts it takes to master tennis, the visuals ratchet up the intensity masterfully to mirror the emotions of the characters. At one point Hiromi has hard lessons beaten into her in a tennis court enclosed by barbed wire, giving it the air of a prison camp. Umpires are faceless shadows casting judgement over the girls' fates. Barrages of tennis balls strike people like a hail of machinegun fire (I've never seen a girl take so many balls to the face in something that doesn't have an adults-only warning on the cover). Blood flies. Questions of who will win or lose mingle with fears over whether they will wind up crippled for life from overexerting themselves.

It's all interwoven with a solid shojo romance arc and, despite clearly not being a complete adaptation of the manga, reaches a satisfying conclusion with an appropriate final confrontation.

9/10
 
Dai said:
Aim for the Ace!
At one point Hiromi has hard lessons beaten into her in a tennis court enclosed by barbed wire, giving it the air of a prison camp. Umpires are faceless shadows casting judgement over the girls' fates. Barrages of tennis balls strike people like a hail of machinegun fire (I've never seen a girl take so many balls to the face in something that doesn't have an adults-only warning on the cover). Blood flies. Questions of who will win or lose mingle with fears over whether they will wind up crippled for life from overexerting themselves.
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Sounds just like my high school tennis team I was a member of for four years, also back in the 1970's, lol! ;)
 
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Galactic Whirlwind Sasuraiger
Sasuraiger might hold the record for the western anime release to go out of print the fastest, being available for less than a month before Discotek discontinued the J9 Trilogy of which this is the final series (though no prior knowledge of the other two shows is required, since they're only a trilogy in a loose sense). So the questions fans of 80s mecha shows may be asking themselves are: should you be kicking yourself for missing out, and is it worth paying horrific scalper prices for? Read on and draw your own conclusions.

The premise is interesting in theory: turn Around the World in 80 Days into Around the Solar System in 365 Days, then throw in a train that transforms into a giant robot. In practice, the execution is variable. Despite being tasked with travelling to 50 planets (they do eventually explain why the solar system has that many by the 30th Century), it often feels more like a road trip across 20th Century America, with a few stops in the wild west and planets inspired by other countries. There are times when Sasuraiger goes full space opera, and those tend to be fun, but on the whole it suffers from a lack of imagination.

The characters are an atypical bunch for an 80s super robot show. There's no Earth Defence Force here, and not a Japanese name in sight. You know that one outgoing, happy-go-lucky and perpetually cheerful American character that used to show up in 80s and 90s anime a lot? Everyone in Sasuraiger is like that. They're constantly throwing each other a thumbs up, and "Yay!" is their version of the Thunderbirds' FAB. Maybe this is just what Japanese people think all westerners are like. You'd think this would grate on the nerves after a while, but surprisingly it works.

Sasuraiger's strongest episodes tend to be those highlighting individual members of the JJ9 team taking part in the journey. Everyone seems to have half a dozen different tragic backstories, since they keep running into ghosts from their past everywhere they go. Thanks to these episodes, and the JJ9 team's infectiously upbeat personalities, Sasuraiger was a show that grew on me after its shaky first few episodes.

Unfortunately far too many of the other episodes fall into one of two predictable patterns. Either:

a) The JJ9 team land on a planet where there's local unrest. They're immediately held up by a gang of thugs with machineguns who capture them and either try to blackmail them into doing something illegal or threaten to hand them over to series villain Bloody God (the kind of villain who remains permanently concealed in shadow even when he's standing next to normally lit people in direct sunlight). JJ9 escape, transform the train into Sasuraiger and kick their butts.

or

b) The JJ9 team land on a planet where there's local unrest. They're immediately held up by local law enforcement, who blame them for crimes that happened before they arrived on the planet and arrest them. JJ9 escape, transform the train into Sasuraiger and kick the butts of whoever really committed the crime.

As for the action, it's a mixed bag. There are some good battles and chases, but in general the Sasuraiger is too over-powered for the typical thugs to stand a chance against it. The enemies don't even start wheeling out their own mechs until half way through the series. Up to that point the hero mech is just stomping on cars and tanks that might as well be toys. After a lengthy transformation sequence, Sasuraiger often lays waste to the opposition all too easily. Also, for a super robot show, it's oddly low-key about fetishising its titular mech. It has various weapons, but they're deployed with no fanfare; I couldn't tell you the name of a single one of its attacks. It may have been trying to ride the line between super robot and real robot a bit, but considering that it's basically a transforming Galaxy Express 999 it's definitely a super robot.

The series does reach a satisfying conclusion, and I waver on whether it's a 6 or 7 overall. It's a show I chipped away at over several months, but ultimately enjoyed and will probably watch again. In the end though, the mediocre episodes outnumber the good ones. There's the backbone of a solid 26 episode series scattered throughout Sasuraiger's run, but the other episodes that pad it out to 43 weigh it down.

6/10
 
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Dai said:
Galactic Whirlwind Sasuraiger
Sasuraiger might hold the record for the western anime release to go out of print the fastest, being available for less than a month before Discotek discontinued the J9 Trilogy of which this is the final series (though no prior knowledge of the other two shows is required, since they're only a trilogy in a loose sense). So the questions fans of 80s mecha shows may be asking themselves are: should you be kicking yourself for missing out, and is it worth paying horrific scalper prices for? Read on and draw your own conclusions.

The premise is interesting in theory: turn Around the World in 80 Days into Around the Solar System in 365 Days, then throw in a train that transforms into a giant robot. In practice, the execution is variable. Despite being tasked with travelling to 50 planets (they do eventually explain why the solar system has that many by the 30th Century), it often feels more like a road trip across 20th Century America, with a few stops in the wild west and planets inspired by other countries. There are times when Sasuraiger goes full space opera, and those tend to be fun, but on the whole it suffers from a lack of imagination.

The characters are an atypical bunch for an 80s super robot show. There's no Earth Defence Force here, and not a Japanese name in sight. You know that one outgoing, happy-go-lucky and perpetually cheerful American character that used to show up in 80s and 90s anime a lot? Everyone in Sasuraiger is like that. They're constantly throwing each other a thumbs up, and "Yay!" is their version of the Thunderbirds' FAB. Maybe this is just what Japanese people think all westerners are like. You'd think this would grate on the nerves after a while, but surprisingly it works.

Sasuraiger's strongest episodes tend to be those highlighting individual members of the JJ9 team taking part in the journey. Everyone seems to have half a dozen different tragic backstories, since they keep running into ghosts from their past everywhere they go. Thanks to these episodes, and the JJ9 team's infectiously upbeat personalities, Sasuraiger was a show that grew on me after its shaky first few episodes.

Unfortunately far too many of the other episodes fall into one of two predictable patterns. Either:

a) The JJ9 team land on a planet where there's local unrest. They're immediately held up by a gang of thugs with machineguns who capture them and either try to blackmail them into doing something illegal or threaten to hand them over to series villain Bloody God (the kind of villain who remains permanently concealed in shadow even when he's standing next to normally lit people in direct sunlight). JJ9 escape, transform the train into Sasuraiger and kick their butts.

or

b) The JJ9 team land on a planet where there's local unrest. They're immediately held up by local law enforcement, who blame them for crimes that happened before they arrived on the planet and arrest them. JJ9 escape, transform the train into Sasuraiger and kick the butts of whoever really committed the crime.

As for the action, it's a mixed bag. There are some good battles and chases, but in general the Sasuraiger is too over-powered for the typical thugs to stand a chance against it. The enemies don't even start wheeling out their own mechs until half way through the series. Up to that point the hero mech is just stomping on cars and tanks that might as well be toys. After a lengthy transformation sequence, Sasuraiger often lays waste to the opposition all too easily. Also, for a super robot show, it's oddly low-key about fetishising its titular mech. It has various weapons, but they're deployed with no fanfare; I couldn't tell you the name of a single one of its attacks. It may have been trying to ride the line between super robot and real robot a bit, but considering that it's basically a transforming Galaxy Express 999 it's definitely a super robot.

The series does reach a satisfying conclusion, and I waver on whether it's a 6 or 7 overall. It's a show I chipped away at over several months, but ultimately enjoyed and will probably watch again. In the end though, the mediocre episodes outnumber the good ones. There's the backbone of a solid 26 episode series scattered throughout Sasuraiger's run, but the other episodes that pad it out to 43 weigh it down.

6/10
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Great review as always but this time I also feel like I've happily experienced the show through it and feel no need to find the time or funds to actually watch it!
awadama said:
I'm very tired and I thought that said "Galactic Whirlwind Sausagerider" 😅
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😂 I'm sure there is one in a different genre
 
Jujutsu Kaisen

It looks and feels like Bleach. There's a sensei character who's an exact copy of Kakashi - personality and looks, right down to covering his eyes. It has parts that are cover versions of Naruto/Kurama scenes. Another character is a clone of Yoarashi from MHA. There's a bad guy who's just Shigaraki (also from MHA). The enemy monsters look like Hollows.

There's a baseball episode (zzzz). There's a long and boring competition where two schools fight just for the hell of it (zzzzzzzzz). One of the girls from that other school looks exactly the same as one of the main characters from Tite Kubo's Burn The Witch (and she flies on a broom).

It's a cover band playing the greatest hits of all your favourite groups. The only unique thing in the whole show is the panda character.

It has an interesting start, looks fine and has a likeable main character, but it gets less and less enjoyable as it goes on. Most of the characters are nothing worth mentioning. It's never bad (and it kept me interested enough to watch right through) but I've got no idea why it seems to have got so big - 6/10
 
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Aggretsuko Season 5

Off to a raging start, concludes with an apathetic end.

Edit: Looking back on this review, I realise that I've gotten really hung up on the final episode and haven't really gone into detail about what I did like about this; the truth is that it largely boils down to being more of what I liked in previous seasons such as the characters and all the wacky antics they can get up to while also being relatable at the same time.

I don't often anticipate anime releases anymore, getting hyped about anime is often a risky endeavour as a lot of shows may very well come with some strings attached, with that said I actually was looking forward to this one to a reasonable degree (not exactly getting hyped but still looking forward to it), overall I would say that most of the time it was what I had expected, more Aggretsuko, I was invested the same way as I was before but one of the biggest issues I have with this season comes from it's ending, more on that in a bit.

First off, the good, as per the previous seasons, the characters are down to earth and believable while being entertaining as well, while I do think that I've seen the best of the characters in previous seasons, they are still likeable for the most part, unless they are not meant to be, case in point, Haida's dad, let's just say that this guy is quite frankly unhinged.
The character designs are great as usual, just like in the previous seasons, the fact that the characters are all anthropomorphic animals with human personalities and above all else, actually well written and relatable is something I very much would like to see more of.
Until the finale, the show mostly packs away the death metal scenes which is good for me because they were easily my least favourite parts of the earlier seasons.
The length of the episodes is a good length as well, making it so that it is much easier to fit in just one more episode before finishing up but the final episode does make me think that maybe for the first time this season could have had a more typical anime runtime.

On the note of the final episode, it is a mess, in fact it is making me struggle to find more positive elements to this overall season, even though there are plenty, I would vastly have prefered it if the middle part was bad instead of the ending as I can then have ended it on a high note but alas; it tries to cram in at least a few episodes worth of story into one, slightly extended, episode, according to what I've read, this is supposed to be the final season but there are so many unanswered questions, such as who tried to run over Haida with a truck and will the person responsible get his comeuppance? I can take an educated guess that it was likely his dad, if not Jiro himself as Jiro basically said to Haida "wasn't me" even though, if he had absolutely nothing to do with it, then he likely wouldn't have known about the truck as, as far as I remember, no one even mentioned it to him.
Another issue I have with the final episode is the fact that the characters decide to do this ridiculous rap, the one thing I didn't like about the previous seasons was actually the metal scenes but that rap scene made the metal scenes seem somewhat tolerable by comparison.
The worst thing about the last episode though is that it rushes the finale to an otherwise excellent show, when I'm enjoying all that leads up to it, I would like a satisfying conclusion to the story to wrap it up but here it feels like just another episode, it does not feel like the finale, unfinished character arcs are either rushed or abandoned which ironically stings the most because everything up to this point is really good.

For an example of a perfect way to end a long running show, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, there a full episode was allocated to seeing the conclusion to any unfinished character arcs which were very close to the end anyway, there we got to properly see off the phenomenal characters for one last time, for comparison, here it's like no one knows it's supposed to be over until it's over and even then, if I were not told this was the final season then I would believe that more was on the way.

Honestly the one redeeming element of the finale comes from the most unlikely of all sources... none other than Ton himself, there is a part where Retsuko is struggling to get people interested in her political party thanks to the fact that she has lost interest in her death voice, only Ton comes along and tells her to literally unleash the same energy she unleashed when badmouthing him as far back as the first season IIRC, this brings Ton's character arc full circle and is actually a really good way to end his one, I just wish the rest of the unfinished arcs got a conclusion like Ton's but as it stands, it's like that one good scene in Shrek the Third, a really good scene surrounded by an absolute mess, unlike that film however, Aggretsuko season 5 has far more than just one good scene, I know I was heavily fixated on the finale but that's what happens when not enough time is allocated to end a fairly long running, show that is otherwise really good.

Overall I know that this seems largely negative but I did enjoy watching this, however the more I think about it, most of what I liked about this also applies to it's predecessors and the ending scuppers my final thoughts on the show to some degree, even going as far as to start a new plot point literally in the already pushed for time last episode, if this were not the final season I could have overlooked how the conclusion was handled as I could then anticipate a season that gives the characters a satisfying send off; there might be hope for a special episode down the line to do just that but until or unless that happens I can only give this a.

7/10
 
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Dance Dance Danseur
This show caught me off guard in several ways. For starters, the key art made me assume this ballet story was shojo with a female protagonist, but it turns out to be seinen with a male protagonist, essentially making it Billy Elliot: The Anime. While that was a misunderstanding on my part, the story itself continued to confound my expectations.

The setup is a familiar one typical for arts and sports anime, but the execution and development of the story play with the familiar tropes, tilting genre-standard conflicts in subtle ways to ratchet up the tension. It's by turns beautiful and horrifying, hilarious and heart-breaking. By the mid-point I thought I could guess how the rest of the series would play out, but as the later episodes developed I found the balance of conflicts teetering back and forth, undermining my assumptions, until the final episode had me breathlessly anticipating a conclusion I couldn't predict. Despite being a mere 11 episodes, and clearly just a fraction of the source manga, it carves out a story arc that covers a surprising amount of ground in some ways, and works as a satisfying self-contained story if there's never another season.

The art and animation caught me off guard too. The figure drawing has an exceptional attention to detail, especially for hands and feet, that convey so much during the dance sequences. There's a masterful command of the human form that you just don't see in most TV anime. When I thought I'd acclimatised to the quality of the artwork, the performance of Swan Lake halfway through blew me away. I'd call it movie quality, but honestly there are only a handful of anime movies that can match up to the jaw-dropping artistry this TV series shows in places.

I worry that this will be one of those shows like Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu that flies under people's radar and never gets a western blu-ray release. That would be a tragedy because I can see this sitting high on people's lists of the best shows of the decade for those who give it a chance. It will take an exceptionally strong slate of shows to come out in the next several years for this not to be one of my top ten favourites of the 2020s.

10/10
 
Mobile Suit Gundam: Doan Leave Me This Way Cucuruz Doan's Island
Considering that this is a feature-length adaptation of a single TV episode, I was pleasantly surprised at the pacing. It doesn't feel stretched too thin. Much of it is reminiscent of the Ranba Ral arc from the original series, in that it gives Amuro some downtime away from White Base. Despite that, the stakes are ultimately appropriately high for a movie by the climax. The story only falters in the resolution of one major conflict, which ends too quickly and easily, and is the main vestigial element betraying that this was originally all over in 25 minutes. Overall it feels like a classic Tomino-style war story.

The animation is excellent, especially for the well-directed mobile suit battles. Character designs retain the look of The Origin, being faithful to the original series for the main cast while having some minor characters seem relatively unhinged almost to the point of parody. While this is primarily an Amuro story, its depiction of Bright Noa was particularly interesting. Having only seen the movie trilogy version of the original, he's portrayed as mature and confident from the outset there, but this movie reveals uncertainty and a lack of experience, making him seem more the 19-year-old out of his depth that he was at that point.

The only aspect of this movie I didn't like was that the story gives a huge amount of screen time to various annoying little kids. This was probably unavoidable given the nature of the story, but these kinds of characters were a recurring weakpoint in the early Gundam shows. At least they're not as annoying as Quess.

7/10
 
Yeah the kids in Cucuruz Doan's Island (acronym is CDI lol) were very high pitched in their voices and annoying. It's a recurring thing I've noticed in quite a few 70s and 80s mech shows, almost like they're suppose to be a stand-in for the target audience a la Power Rangers.
 
Otherside Picnic
The whole time I was watching this series, one thought kept rattling through my head, "I really miss Manglobe." The rich atmosphere and meticulous design that Manglobe brought to Ergo Proxy and Witch Hunter Robin would have been a perfect match for Otherside Picnic, but sadly that studio doesn't exist any more.

While I haven't read the source material, the Otherside Picnic anime feels like a competent adaptation. The problem is that some stories demand something other than off-the-peg anime aesthetics. I'm aware that the novels and manga used the same character designs, but they just don't fit the story. The animators do manage to pull off some eerie moments in places, but for the most part the bright colours, poorly judged use of stiff CG for mundane scenes, and overall look of the series fall short of what the story needs. It's the same feeling I got watching the competent but safely attractive Boogiepop & Others after experiencing the unsettling brutality of Boogiepop Phantom.

It's a shame because Otherside Picnic is that rarest of beasts: an old-school, horror-tinged isekai that puts some actual effort into its world-building and gives us an otherworld that feels truly alien and threatening. In an anime landscape drenched in the worst kind of self-referential, generic RPG power-fantasy isekai, this series should have flattened the competition, but its merely competent adaptation undermines it.

None of this is to say it's a bad series; far from it. There are some solid episodes here. It's just that adaptations of a lot of manga and light novels can get away with a "good enough" approach to the art and direction, and this isn't one of them.

7/10
 
Dai said:
The animators do manage to pull off some eerie moments in places, but for the most part the bright colours, poorly judged use of stiff CG for mundane scenes, and overall look of the series fall short of what the story needs. It's the same feeling I got watching the competent but safely attractive Boogiepop & Others after experiencing the unsettling brutality of Boogiepop Phantom.
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That is so spot on regarding the prequel series, good as it was it certainly didn't retain the original's spooky aesthetics and atmosphere. Been looking forward to Otherside Picnic, which has been lounging on my watchlist but will be moving it right up to watch start I finish the relatively painful KADO.
 
Geriatric hedgehog said:
That is so spot on regarding the prequel series, good as it was it certainly didn't retain the original's spooky aesthetics and atmosphere. Been looking forward to Otherside Picnic, which has been lounging on my watchlist but will be moving it right up to watch start I finish the relatively painful KADO.
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Kado was such a disappointment in the end. It raised some fascinating philosophical questions and was a rare case of a series that generated some real thoughtful discussion in the Crunchyroll comments. But it all just fell apart in the last few episodes.
 
Dai said:
Kado was such a disappointment in the end. It raised some fascinating philosophical questions and was a rare case of a series that generated some real thoughtful discussion in the Crunchyroll comments. But it all just fell apart in the last few episodes.
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Exactly, I still have a couple of episodes to finish but I do love the concepts, even if they have my usual bugbear of the narrow-minded, self-centred outlook of humans beings as usual being the best thing since sliced-big-bang-bread just because we have this amazing thing called emotions and capricious natures 🥱 . But I'm very irritated by the lazy fallback onto unimaginative anime tropes with supposed adults (and otherwordly higher beings) acting like junior high school kids😴.

I did start with low expectations given the utter disappointment that Babylon was, so I guess it's been better than that so far, even though Babylon was brilliant up until episode 7 or so if I remember correctly.
 
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