- Last OnlineJul 14, 2023 7:50 AM
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May 12, 2022
"There are some things you can say, and some things you can't. I didn't raise you to be like this."
It's fairly obvious that the reputation and overall image of the LGBT+ community has always been mixed, even today albeit more widely accepted than before. In a conservative country like Japan, topics of LGBT+ can be rather taboo for some families, and some may downright alienate family members from just being one. This is what Go Fujimoto tackles in his short albeit emotional and nuanced one shot Kikyou.
Let me start with the art first before we go talk about the story, the art is beautiful in
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my opinion, maybe it's just me but I definitely have a bias towards the style Go Fujimoto draws in as well the facial expressions he draws with each character, conveying each and every bit of emotion of it's characters.
The protagonist of this short story is Masashi, a 29 year old gay man. We see him come out to his parents in the first few pages, but the result of that however leads to a bit of a strained relationship with his parents, with them not accepting him for who he is. The words of his parents hurt me too, more than I expected to, and each of the words his father uttered was like a sharp knife towards my own fragile heart.
We later learned that his father had passed away and Masashi is conflicted, to say the least, feeling somewhat more relieved than sad and It definitely hit home when I read this panel. We also learned that Masashi's mother as well as his father too is conflicted with her own feelings too in the later pages, as they try to understand their son, and in the end they wanted to make amends with him, but life is cruel isn't it?
What I like a lot about this one shot is how nuanced and realistic it was, from how human all of the characters are, from Masashi's feelings, the coming out scene and the very painful words of his aunt as well, it all felt genuinely real. The funeral part hit home in a lot of ways. Masashi's words is enough to describe it.
"I found myself crying, my eyes were filled with tears, tears that wouldn't stop."
The conclusion is amazing and powerful in my opinion, with Masashi sending a letter of all of his thoughts and feelings to his mother and his mother implied acceptance of him, I think it also captures the core theme of Kikyou. Understanding. Understanding of people we can't relate to, understanding of those whom we aren't familiar with and understanding of them and accepting with open arms, even if that process would take several days, week, even years but in the end, it makes us better people. It honestly baffles me how a one shot manga from 2003 depicts the LGBTQ community so realistically.
If there's a sentence that would describe Kikyou as a whole it would be the panel in the middle where Masashi said this.
"In the end, all of us are normal people, the kind that you see everyday and talk to everyday, the kind that need food to live."
"The only difference is that we're in love with the same sex. It's bad enough we're shunned by society but why must we also be cast by our own parents?"
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 29, 2022
Baby I Love You Daze is basically an advertisement for the confectionary company Lotte as well as a celebration of it's 70th anniversary.
Directed by Rie Matsumoto who also did the magnificient Gotcha! music video and the style as well as the animation is very similar here as well. The music video focuses on the romance of two teenagers via chocolate, obviously as this is a ad for.......well chocolate. Nothing to say on the actual substance of the video as it's just a simple love story told visually.
The visuals are a special treat to the eye from the slick transitions, and the many uses of
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the pixelated art style, it telling a story reflecting the story of the video as well. The song is as catchy as it can get, it being sang by the band Bump of Chicken which was also involved in Rie Matsumoto's other works.
Overall: 9/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 18, 2022
HoloStars to me, is actually better than the Hololive Girls to be honest, and that's primarily i've gotten annoyed to the cutesy, high pitched voices of the hologirls, no offense to any of the Hololive Vtubers, i'm sure they're all very good people.
Anyways, stars*collection is basically just a spin off of the currently airing Holo no Graffiti, but instead of the girls, we get the guys. The shenanigans are pretty much the same, with stars*collection just being shorter because it's basically just new, though the characters are just charming as it's female counterparts.
Aru-ran, Roberu, Oga, Izuru, and Shien are the only ones that have appeared
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so far in the anime, but the short runtime has us peek at their personality shortly, in these 2 minute shorts. The problem with many short anime is that the characters are never really explored and that they have no depth, and by how many episodes are out (only far rip) that criticism is probably right, but that doesn't take away the actual selling point of this anime.
That being cute male idols getting into shenanigans, and if you don't like what i described, then you won't enjoy this anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 18, 2022
Pokemon. Everyone's grown up on it, it made lots of money and has been many people's childhoods, there's even a long running anime about it, but that's not i'm gonna review.
Pokemon Generations is ambitious, short and entertaining. As a fan of the games the show is basically fanservice, it's a nostalgia blast.
Art: 8/10
The art is great, that is to be expected being animated by 5 different studios, it's definitely improved from the anime (Which is sometimes lackluster), the artstyle isn't brand new but is wonderful nonetheless, seeing all of my favorite scenes from the games animated as well as the fight sequences being as fluid
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and fast as it can be examples being the Kyogre and Groudon scenes, Deoxys vs Rayquaza and the twoi Dragons of Unova, even if some frames look awkward af but overall great in general.
Story: 8/10
The story of Pokemon is vast and wide in the games, this ONA basically adapts a short portion of each generation's story in 3 different episodes that do not connect to each other at all, the pacing might be awkward.
Episode 4 i'm looking at you
The pacing does improve, especially with Gen 5's episodes, which is the best part of this series besides the last episode which is beautiful. Though, the story buckles under it's own screentime, which is 4 minutes long each, nonetheless it still manages to delivers it's story albeit sometimes abruptly.
OST: 8/10
The ost comprises of the soundtracks from the games, which is understandable but it does have a few original tunes (at least it doesn't reuse the same explosions effects which is a blessing.). It's definitely great and memorable personally, it really did incur a bit of nostalgia in me which is probably the reason i enjoyed this ONA so much.
Characters: 9/10
There is no specific protagonist in this show (Looker is probably the protagonist...probably.) but the characters are definitely adapted beautifully, N, Looker, and even Ghetsis. The characters are probably the best part of this series for me, seeing them all talk, instead of just reading them from a text box, Patrick Seitz, one of the best Dub VAs in my opinion did a amazing job as Ghetsis in this short anime, and of course, in what's probably the thing that propelled my rating from a 75 to 85 is AZ. The endgame of Pokemon X and Y had a character named AZ and the anime adapted him wonderfully, from the backstory and to the reunion, the whole character is just chef's kiss as well as Silver, especially Silver in how they made him a complex character, the characters are definitely the highlight of the show.
I don't know what else to say but overall, this show is a short, entertaining that was clearly made for the fans.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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