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Kingdom is a particularly difficult Manga for me to talk about, because much of what I think of it stands in stark opposition to what it claims itself to be. Kingdom is a story for peace; it is a story that knows how horrible wars are, it is a story that is much about the importance of human connection, of seeing the value of even the smallest, most meagre man within an army of tens of thousands. Yet it is also a story that turns the violence of battle into simple entertainment, that shows fields of war as the sole domain of certain individuals who, ... from high up on their horses, dictate the flow of life and death and all that lies between. Kingdom shows us events of immeasurable cruelty and looks at us to tell us that this is war, that this is the suffering that must be prevented, yet it is this cruelty that never touches a single character.

What makes this story so difficult to discuss for me is the degree to which it is either unaware of its own contents or how it lies about the beliefs it holds and ideas it conveys. For this reason alone, this review will be split into two parts. Usually, I like to base my writing on a central through line, most commonly this takes the form of the message a work leaves me with, but this is not a foundation on which I can discuss Kingdom in a balanced manner. Though I do not particularly like this Manga, unlike its author, I want to give the subject I am writing about a good look, as free from bias as possible. Because of this, there will be a first part solely concerned with Kingdom’s ability to entertain and function as a self-contained story and piece of art, while this review’s second part will be solely concerned with the ideas propagated in Kingdom, their ideological and political implications, and why I believe them to be reason enough for you not to read this Manga.

Part 1. Kingdom The Entertainer

Over the course of its more than fifteen thousand pages, Kingdom manages to construct a narrative that grows and grows smoothly and cohesively. At no point, reading this Manga, was I ever left with a feeling that a chapter betrayed what came before, that the author somewhere messed up in their planning or that the carefully built-up structure of interlocking events and arcs even slightly drifted apart. If there is one thing that I find worthy of praise here beyond all else, it is the standard of quality kept throughout every single one of those hundreds of chapters and thousands of pages. Never once does Kingdom dip below some standard of quality you would expect from it, but in reverse, Kingdom also rarely exceeds expectations. While this story most definitely has narrative high points and arcs that are better than others, if you finish the first 170 chapters of this Manga, roughly equivalent to the anime’s first season, you will have seen the heights this story sores to, and this is a high point it manages to reach quiet consistently close to a dozen times over the course of its long runtime. That being said, you will not find it exceeding this point; you will see story arcs that more densely contain the same high points with less downtime in between, but the peaks this story contains are all kept under the same ceiling. I do not wish to talk about this too much, as this ceiling I am referring to is largely based on Kingdom’s ideological failings and will thus be discussed in part two, but there is an aspect of this that I want to talk about here, and that is the narrative side of messaging within media.

A story always says something; a narrative conclusion always entails a solution that is sold as functional or dysfunctional, and in this regard, the narrative structure of Kingdom is one that bleeds into itself, as there is never an elevation out of the known into territory that feels even remotely new. Story Arcs throughout Kingdom move on much the same ground; this is even figuratively the case, you will rarely find visual variety in the many battles this story spans. Historical accuracy, though commonly disregarded by this Manga, is a reasonable explanation for why much of the environments of Kingdom are the same. Pitched battles did predominantly occur on flat, mostly even terrain, and in the case of this Manga, the given location where an armed encounter occurs is largely accurate to history; still, it does little to distinguish them from one another. The fields of combat bleed into one another in a way that would almost be poignant if this were a fact acknowledged by the story, or bolstered it in any way. Nonetheless, we are left with a lot of visual and narrative set dressing of large battles, which sure took a lot of effort to create, but does not leave a lasting impression. All battles within Kingdom, no matter how many chapters they might span, no matter what result they might lead to, are largely devoid of substance. This is the case because, as we will get into in part 2, Kingdom does not contain effective messaging for these battles, nor does it even really have messages to convey, but also because of the way that it depicts combat.

Throughout a given battle, you will see beautifully illustrated and detailed infographics to show the positions of troops and specific individuals, and right off the bat, there are a few things that are problematic with this. Though Kingdom is a struggle for the impossible, a story about realising what was previously decried as a dream within a dream, it fails to convey this in an effective way narratively, due to a severe lack of realism. Time and time again you will see conflicts in which the protagonist faces off against an enemy that is supposed to be deeply cunning and dangerous beyond belief, often times you will see the “good guys” fail against them, yet every single time you will notice, that team Qin (that is team “good guys”) will never have more combatants than whatever dangerous man they are facing off against. Every struggle needs to be so fragrantly David v. Goliath that you inevitably notice how utterly irrelevant the number of combatants is to begin with. Never, throughout the entirety of all of Kingdom will you see an unnamed character be responsible for the death of a general. Every chapter, you get 10 panels of people ripping each other into shreds, you get long speeches about the dangers and futility of war, but not once does this random cruelty befall a single character we know. Instead, every general is a hulking wall of meat that effortlessly slices a group of ten heavy-armoured soldiers in half with a single swing of their glaive. This is such a problem that Kingdom actively struggles with making its enemy generals seem more and more dangerous. Both the first and most recent big baddy our protagonists face off against are introduced with that same move, with a bunch of good guys running at them, and a bunch of good guys falling apart after being sliced to bits. Turns out you can’t properly convey strength at this point of exaggeration, without outright making the glaive longer every time, until the next general can cut a hundred meters far or develops into an outright technical nuke. With this, we run into the inevitable problem of turning war into a Shōnan-like spectacle, which is once again twofold. For one, there are again apparent ideological problems with this, which we will get to in part 2, but here I want to focus solely on the inefficiency of telling this story within a war-centric setting. Kingdom is fundamentally about a set of protagonist characters overcoming a set of antagonistic characters, and relevant to this are rarely more than five people on each side. To base such a story on the violent battlefields of hundreds of thousands of combatants not only creates a deeply historically inaccurate portrayal of warfare, but also unnecessarily bloats this story with redundant elements. As strange as this might sound, war is largely obsolete to Kingdom’s canon. Obviously, these events are historical; obviously, these acts of martial warfare did occur, though not in any shape even close to what this Manga portrays them as, but for the story that it tells through this history, these wars are nothing more than wallpaper covering the pages. These could just as well be back-alley brawls or, more accurately, scheduled matches in martial arts dojos and public gymnasiums. For all this story is concerned, the thousands of soldiers present at these fights do not amount to much more than rows of screaming fans, cheering along for their side’s Big Guy. There is another side to Kingdom’s battles, one which I expected to be its heart, and that is its use of strategy. Unfortunately, while there are some plays at strategy in here that had me dumbfounded, wondering how I didn’t think of that beforehand, all of it is narratively meaningless. Strategy is only ever the thing that builds the scene, that brings our two buffed guys into the same room. The outcome of all wars will always end with a single blow-by-blow action scene.

Yet there is another side to Kingdom, far behind the battlelines, one of political intrigue, of courtroom struggles, and it is here where this Manga’s better half, as well as its furthest steps into the realm of ideological pondering and soul-fuckery occur. I quite like much of what happens in these unfortunately rare few chapters, in which we at last leave behind our unsalvageable main cast (whom we will get to soon), and finally dive more into the “competent” side of this nation’s leadership. Here, you will unfortunately have to accept that Kingdom tries to sell you some real freakish idiots as morally good people to lead a nation. Still, if you can get over the way this Manga portrays the Qin Dynasty’s generals and chancellors as bastions of good in a world of evil, there are, at the very least, some interesting ideas here. Generally, don’t expect anything particularly smart to come from this, but there are a lot of things that are good food for thought, and unlike a few other people I’ve talked to, I quite like the dabbles in Confucian and Legalist thinking we get throughout these chapters. Mainly, though, courtroom drama and intrigue serve as much-needed breaks from long and tiring battles, and it is here that the story seems to actually move. While a given fight is obviously an event instrumental to the goals of all parties involved, the act of warfare itself, which, as I said, is not something you really see here, tends to be a long and painful endeavour. Victory is when there is once again time to breathe, and following it, time to move. The things that were fought over are claimed after the battle is over, lines are moved, ranks are handed out, updates and plans are exchanged. It is here that the story manages to establish its sense of scale, and if it wasn’t for the few glimpses we got behind the walls of capitals alike, there truly would be nothing to distinguish this Manga from its contemporaries in Shōnan Jump.

At last, we are left with two groups we have yet to discuss, our protagonists and antagonists. To start with the former, Kingdom stars Shin, a slave who slowly builds himself up with the goal of reaching the rank of Great General. This is close to all there is to him. There are small bits of his character we get that go beyond this ambition; Shin is a generally empathetic person, he tends to see the best in people, struggles for his comrades, fights for those who lay their hopes upon his shoulders and carries the burdens of the ones his blade could not protect. All this is true, yet the person I envision reading that sentence, the person I expect most to see when they read it, is so much closer to Guts from Berserk than Shin, and yet Guts is also a tormented, brutal soul that was so often cold and distant and could not care for the men and women around him. But that is precisely why I see a character like Guts as embodying such values to a degree that Shin could never portray. Shin was never a broken man, though he is a child of war, and though he grew up under the doctrine of heroic sacrifice and military ambitions. What makes Shin so utterly boring is the way in which he flattens the world surrounding him. Shin is not the product of his time; he is a character solely separate from his environment, not one you see spout and change out of the people he meets across this journey, but one that always already saw a lesson beforehand, so he can teach others of its meaning. Though this is the story of Shin, a man destined for impossible greatness, overcoming all odds, you will not see him grow; he will be the same child at age thirty that he was at the beginning. I am not saying that Shin should grow from warfare, I simply ask that a character is changed by their experience, be it shellshock or genuine love and maturity or growing incompetence from bad friends or wisdom imparted by those that did not make it as far as he did… but this is not Shin, for Shin does not change. It is this that, beyond all else, turns all battles into the same. You watch the same kid fight the same stupid struggles, and you want to see him change, you want to know that at some point he breaks because of it or looks back upon the past and sees some kind of stupid young self that he no longer is, but he can’t. You will not find introspection in these characters, neither forced nor willingly; you will not see this band of warmongering “good guys” grow into something they weren’t before. A few times throughout this story we get short arcs that are not focused on our protagonist Shin, and time and time again we see people expand their abilities, we see friends grow from little girls to military experts that judge the battlefield like few others, we see coldblooded assassins turn back to at last use that knife of theirs to cut away that path that binds them to their craft… and yet again, the only thing that changes when they inevitably come back to the party, is their ability. These aren’t characters that grow; these are characters who, to use the Manga’s own language, “level up”. This is what contextualises all characters that find their place on the battlefield. They are abilities, they are buttons to press at some point throughout combat, so we can get a panel of them using their special move, or being all smart and seeing through the strategy, but because all of this is irrelevant, because all combat only ends in the same one-on-one struggle between Shin and an opposing general, they truly often feel like less then nothing. I do not know the names of any of Shin’s fellow unit members, except for Kyou Kai and Ka Ryo Ten, who are both irrelevant and are coincidentally also the two most important characters besides Shin. There are over a dozen named foot soldiers that don’t die, simply survive all struggles, even though every time we see them, they are about to be sliced in half, and never do they accomplish anything important, because, no matter how many soldiers they kill, soldiers are irrelevant; only the lives of generals dictate the battlefield.

There are two more units/armies that we commonly hear of throughout the story, both of which are utterly irrelevant except for the two men that lead them, who also don’t change and have the same dynamic for over a decade's worth of chapters.

Lastly, I want to quickly talk about King Sei, the “young” monarch whose expansionist ambitions create all of this Manga’s story and a very interesting and deadly period in Chinese history. He will be the protagonist of this review’s second part, but for now, I want to declare him as this story’s second most interesting character (there is one general that tops everyone else by a mile). Sei is central to the narrative’s biggest ideological conflict, and strangely, it is his character that is mirrored for our primary antagonist, Ri Boku. This is problematic, as Ri Boku is the wall that stands at the end of Shin’s narrative and military road, yet Ri Boku does not make for an interesting antagonistic force against Shin in the slightest, as these are not characters that have any conflict beyond the mere battlefield. In its current form, taking the character of Shin and assuming that he could not be changed (which would obviously be preferable), the kind of antagonist this story required would be one that mirrored Shin, but this is not possible, because Shin does not hold any interesting moral or ideological positions and neither is he created to be wrong in any of his beliefs. This leaves us with Sei as the de facto protagonist of the narrative’s actual plot, while Shin is simply the lens through which we observe it. I must quickly add that this is not at all accurate to the way this story is actually told, but still, analysing it from this angle at least makes many of its narrative choices understandable. The conflict between Sei and Ri Boku is interesting, though this is the kind of ideological struggle that requires two things: firstly, a deep enough understanding to actually depict these positions accurately and with that, the necessary understanding of history to not turn a tyrannical dictator into the perfect nice guy. This is the problem with Sei, he is a good guy more so than even Shin, he is portrayed as morally atop the world itself, while his actual position is terribly stupid and led to a suffering so great that you could fill every single page of every single chapter of Kingdom with lists of names similar to the thing they did in Chainsaw Man (I am sure some people know what I am referring to), and still you would not get everyone that died because of Sei’s commitment to military action over diplomacy.

Kingdom’s best antagonists are a rare few old men struggling with the idea that their time is soon to pass, and that they are no longer the new kids to dictate the flow of blood on the battlefield. Apart from them, this Manga’s antagonists are as hollow as our protagonists, fighting for not a whole lot more than nationalism, and even of that, we do not get an even remotely interesting analysis. Once again, the enemies our protagonists face off against are like rocks to climb over; they could be training dummies, because that is narratively all they amount to. If all our progression amounts to stat increases, to “level-ups”, then there is no person to overcome, because an interaction with a person would create an environment in which our characters would change, and this seemingly must be avoided at all costs. It probably doesn’t need to be said, but our non-character antagonists do not change any more than our already unchanging protagonists.

With that, we reached the end of the first part, and to leave it on a positive note, I want to at least mention one more time the level of quality and detail in this Manga’s drawings. They are not interesting, not narratively, not contextually, not through experimentation and strange new compositions, but still, they adhere to their boringly great quality.

Part 2. Kingdom The Teacher

Kingdom is a story that is, at the same time, deeply politically ignorant, and very far up its own arse in a way that quite reminded me of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. In this way, it is special because it fills the role of teacher so much worse than most stories, but wears its clothes so casually.

All stories to some extend have a lesson within them, something they give their readers to carry on with. Some are more focused on this than others, Manga like Vinland Saga, Takopi or Ping Pong, which never waste a second, staying focused throughout it all. There is a distinct style to these stories, and it is often the colours of grandeur. When you have a thing that you find important enough to share, you frame it on a stage you see as befitting. Kingdom is one stage builder, but what it puts into the spotlight is subpar and not fully formulated at its best, and outright fascist at its worst. For me, the apparent stupidity of its lessons was only highlighted through this contrast between contents and presentation, yet I understand that this is not the case for everyone, and so we need to understand the apparent dangers in mythologising the wrong lessons. Kingdom particularly struggles with this, due to its historic context.

Sei is a man who existed, who lived as the Qin Dynasty’s first emperor, and so his actions to some degree are bound to history. This is not to say that Kingdom stays true to this history; instead, we view China’s ancient nobility through rose-tinted glasses and gloss over the mass murder of dissenters and far-reaching censorship this king was once known for. Sei is portrayed as a good character by the purest meaning of the word; he is a just king, a loving king, one who views his citizens alike as equals, even as he sends them off to die in the thousands. His ambition, true to history, remains the conquest and unification of China, but this is not depicted as the warmongering insanity it was, but instead as the necessary way towards an end to warfare. Kingdom presents him as a man who bloodies his hands, but who sees what is necessary and commits the violence required to at last birth a better future. Unfortunately, a single look at history informs us, the Qin Dynasty, once it united China, to at last stop the endless wars, persisted for a meagre 15 years, before internal conflicts, either violently suppressed or violently fought to the end, ripped it apart.

The reality is simply that peace can be protected with violence, but it can never be achieved through its use. The violent annexation of a nation will never create an environment of long-lasting peace. The ambition for a unified China is a noble one, at least as it is presented in Kingdom, but all strive for equality, to remove borders, be it between nations, ethnicities or social classes, can only be achieved through acts of equality and diplomacy. War is by its nature hierarchical, both in the environment that births it, but also in the environment it creates. The slaughter of another always entails a degradation of their humanity, a refutation of their rights. It is because of this that peace, a state defined through equality, cannot be achieved with means of warfare.

King Sei’s plan for unification was always destined to fail, and this alone is not a problem. You can tell a phenomenal story about futile ambitions, and the deeply broken and unlikeable people who carried them, but this is not what Kingdom attempts to be. Within this manga's mythology, King Sei is not a fool, is not a lunatic authoritarian, but the one good king. This fundamentally misrepresents the ideas propagated within this manga, but also the very real history from which it draws so much of its setting. To portray a king as competent at all is highly questionable, be it only because any competent and “good” king would do all in his power to slowly and safely convert his Kingdom into a democratic nation. The mere depiction of hierarchical structures is not problematic, but to show them as efficient or functional when every part of history shows us that they aren’t, is not only disingenuous, but dangerous. It is here that Kingdom’s openly nationalist story drifts into the realm of fascism, and to understand this, we first have to look at militarism.

I have already talked to some extend about how poorly Kingdom portrays war in Part 1, but it is now that we finally get to its broader implications. Today, we attribute the field of historical analysis called “Great Man Theory” to Thomas Woolner, himself both an imperialist and monarchist. For Woolner, history was “[…] but the Biography of great men”, and it is this view that underlines all that is Kingdom. All wars are decided by individual figures, and almost always are these figures shown to be naturally capable beyond all reason, and their position as commonly great generals validates the hierarchical structures that elected them to their positions. It is undeniable that the men who united China under Qin had a deep proficiency for war, yet it is both wrong to depict them as particularly wise and to depict this ability as a physical capability for combat. These battles should, on the one hand, be focused on strategy, with no general, no soldier at all, ever being portrayed as martially skilled enough to change the tides of battle through physical combat alone. There can be offsets on the battlefield, but these must be down to strategy or chance. On the other hand, these generals were not great men to change history, but instead were themselves the product of said history. When talking about Shin, I described him as solely separate from the world in which he supposedly grew up, and it is this reason that portrays the author's utter misunderstanding of history better than any other. Our world is ruled not by people but by ideas; it is ideology and thoughts that dictate the flow of history. During the Autumn and Fall Period, these thoughts were feudalism, nationalism, statism, expansionism, militarism, monarchism, totalitarianism, Confucianism, Legalism and hierarchy, and these are principles that led to centuries of warfare and suffering. To believe that it was a list of great men that dictated this era means to cut them away from the chains of their environments. They were not the judges or creators of history, but simply another stream along which it inevitably flowed.

These Hero-characters on which all this narrative is built are an essential part of militarism and its propaganda, and because of this, it is deeply tied to fascism. Umberto Eco describes the fascist, be it Führer or foot soldier, as the hero of their own legend, and it is the fascist’s deep desire for plot, for narrative, that brings him to try to move his story and in doing so risk his life on the battlefield. It is hard to read holocaust scholars and philosophers talk about the drive for glory and not see it reflected in this manga time and time again.

This is the inherent contradiction of Kingdom, the gaping abyss that lies between the words of its protagonists and this story’s actual contents. While Shin will be depicted as a force of good, as a soldier who stays true to his morals and thus embodies the values of Sei’s humane war, this is as backwards as the war itself. Shin’s portrayal as a “good guy” is not necessarily ahistorical, there most definitely have been soldiers through out all wars, which detested war, and yet continued onwards, but these were men that either hated the systems that pushed them into bloody sacrifices, or they were themselves the ignorant victims of doctrine, which they could not parse from their previously held beliefs. Shin’s beliefs, as presented by this manga, stand in contradiction to what he is fighting for, and this contradiction is never addressed. He is a man for whom war did good, who served his nation until his nation served him, who was born a slave and reached the highest ranks of military service, but this story isn’t real. Nobody grows or is made better through warfare, and sure, there are necessary wars, which have to be fought to protect what is dear, but even those wars are better not to occur at all. The ideas of military fulfilment are irreconcilable with principles of equality, peace or safety, all of which Shin believes in to some degree. To sell us a character like him in this day and age is like the soft lie of a fascist, to get you on board with his wars. “You can keep your principles”, they tell you, “There are men just like you fighting for the homeland”, they assure you, but all of it is bullshit.

Kingdom is propaganda, consciously or not, to get you to see war as a deadly game, but not an uncomfortable one. Death is plastered along all pages, but never does it meet a familiar face, never does it come unexpectedly, never is it dirty. Even when we see a man get tortured and diced, we are sold the lie that he remained, that he was strong until the last second. But this isn’t war, in war those familiar faces break, in war you don’t just die, you suffer. War isn’t a game with deadly stakes, but a long and suffocating track through a swamp of razor blades, and it is not one that is endured, but that seeps into the self and slowly drowns it. A man who truly sees war always dies, though there might be a thing that returns, and though it might in some hollow way still resemble him. Through this, Kingdom launders history and its atrocities, it turns the King into a trusted figure, the state into a competent institution of functional technocrats and sells you the lie of a good authority that fights for those it looms over. War is turned into a means of entertainment, and suffering is whitewashed into the simplicity of death, of a body being sliced in half, just as the one before it, and the one before that, and the one before that. There are comrades in war, friends you find in bloody struggle, not people to cling to in your darkest hours, but souls with whom you will soar to new heights. There is a home to return to, that always waits for you, that loves you, that thinks you fight for it, as you disappear for months on the battlefield. These are the myths of Kingdom, they are fascist, authoritarian, totalitarian, imperialist myths that exist to appeal to those who do not have a life that fulfils them, and thus, looking for something new, are susceptible to the propaganda of kings.

You should not read Kingdom for the same reason you should not trust a psychic. They will tell you that all they want is in your interest, that they are honest, fun, enjoyable people, and that they just want to talk. They don’t. Even if this story’s author does not want to recruit you into the military, the psychic sure will. To give them your time means to make yourself vulnerable to the ideas they spread, and those ideas will make you lonely, hateful and, if you sign that recruitment document, maybe even dead. Be mindful of the ideas that dictate the media you consume, because you won’t always be on your guard, and they will lie to you, and you will take their word for it.

This is why you should not read Kingdom.

[Edit 30.06.2026: An aspect of the narrative I failed to mention writing this review, which now seems beyond important to address, would be the manga's conflation of state interests and the interests of its citizenry. Time and time again, Kingdom argues for the mass mobilisation of its populace on the grounds that they would be brutalized following the fall of Qin, and through this, it frames its many wars as the product of a universal will that drives the citizens of Qin. Not only is this deeply historically inaccurate, it also presents King Sei as a de facto democratic representative, that merely fulfils the will of his many subjects, once more laundering his image. I remind you of the fact that the manga does not even once make an effort to showcase inequalities or inefficiencies caused by hereditary monarchism, it does not question its morality, instead actively showing both ‘good' and bad monarchs, the only difference between the two, according to this manga's mythology, being the individual greed and lust of the crown bearer. In other words, Kingdom articulates an appeal to technocracy by presupposing the validity of an authority, which it predicates on said authority's assumed capacity to rule; a good king is good merely because they are, there are no deeper reasons that inform such judgements. It pathologises not the institutions which ultimately allowed for this time period's suffering to occur, but instead casts blame solely upon those it deems to be the evil ones, and though this manga might grant even them a shred of sympathy from time to time, it will not do the reverse for its main characters, will not critique them, will not challenge them on their beliefs, will not question their positions. They are the will of the people; why? Because they have to be. Because they are ‘the good guys'. Because, if they, the state, the military, were acting against the interests of the people they supposedly represent, we would need to ask ourselves if these are truly the heros they claim to be. And so their moral virtue is always presupposed, the world curbing around them to meet their position. If they are the good guys, then the country has to like them. If they are the good guys, then they need to be good at their job. If they are the good guys, then all is fine; this is a just war, because one cannot do harm in the name of good.

I might be the odd one out here, but the reason why I didn’t like this film as much as I expected, after looking at a trailer, was not plot holes, was not occasionally weak writing, was not somewhat annoying characters, but much more the world this story takes place in.
Lost in Starlight is generally a good film and one that is worth a watch, though not as much as a lot of other stuff, but for all the things it shows, all the imaginative imagery it uses to tell its story, it fails to address one incoherence at its core. This is a ... romance story set in a dystopian world, that is sold to us as utopia. Flying taxis, drone delivery, ten lane highways, advertisements everywhere, blasted through your windows straight into your brain; this is a world that screams Blade Runner, that bleeds of the corpo bullshit of Cyberpunk and Ghost in the Shell, but is so dazzled by flickering pixels of neon lights, that it fails to see the problems in these things. Lost in Starlight, through selling us a dystopian future as a hopeful tomorrow, frames its entire narrative as one of corporate bliss, of utopia through the systems constructed at the end of the line, that has to go up and up and up, and will eventually reward all of us. You can write beautiful stories of romance and friendship in settings that fight kindness at every step, look at an anime like Edgerunners, a show about how humanity always resists no matter how fucked the world is, but these narratives exist in acknowledgement of what we are fighting, they are tales of people who get together, not because Tinder is mandatory, but in spite of it, that end up happy, even though the state outlawed happiness, that fight a system that forbids to acknowledge anything but its own existence. Lost in Starlight sells us a future that forgot us, as one that was created for us, and though I understand how people can look at a movie like this and say, “well, it’s just a romance story”, that is exactly the problem. We can not forget reality, simply because our manufactured version of romance is so much more fluffy than the hard edges of this hellhole we built for ourselves, that was built for us. We should find happiness and hope at every step of the way, but that happiness should lie in truth, in the actual human connection at the heart of any romance story, and that heart can not be found in advertisements, no matter how lavishly animated.
Lost in Starlight is a good movie, one well worth checking out, but it is not lost in starlight, but much more the workings of reality itself.

Orb most certainly isn't a show for everyone, it has a very specific methodical tone with a heavy emphasis on moral and ethical conflict. This story is not about big brawls and chapter-spanning mind games, though it features both violence and exceptionally smart characters. It is not about a conflict of characters but of ideas, that is what fundamentally lifts it from most anime. Because of this, I would call it closest to Vinland Saga in tone, though while that story still tells its tale and teaches its moral through a single character, the protagonist of Orb is an idea. Heliocentrism, the idea of basing ... our view of the world not on the earth but the sun is fundamentally what this story is about, though through grappling with this concept in a historical context during the 15th century, it becomes so much more than that. This show isn't about astronomy as much as it is about truth. You do not need to be interested in space or physics to understand and love this anime, because its story is about how institutions control reality. How we perceive our world to work and who gets to tell us what is true and what isn't. Orb fundamentally believes in the idea of a moral truth; reality is not evil, thus believing in it is the only moral view of the world. All truths will at some point be found, thus fighting truth through concepts like religion is a war that can only be lost, but that never stopped people from trying. The conflicts that originate from those who seek truth above all else, or rather the conflict that originates from those who try to obscure reality, is what the show is fundamentally about and it tells this story wonderfully.
This is why Orb isn't for everyone, because it isn't as much about characters, as it is about concepts. The anime uses phenomenally well-written characters to tell this story, characters that wonderfully embody the positions in this conflict, but at the end of the day, it isn't about any single person, but the truth they seek. View Orb as the following question:
"How moral is the truth"
If that seems interesting to you, then you have to watch this show, it is outstanding in almost every way. If you want a character drama with a focus on conflict originating from characters, not ideas, then you should still give this anime a try, but it probably isn't for you. I will judge it from the perspective of someone who loves these kinds of moral problems, from someone who watched the show as the thing it is meant to be, and I find it to be utterly fantastic.

Watch the first three episodes, they give you a good look at what you are getting into and each of them presents an interesting new angle to the topic.

...I don't delete my old writing, something something transparency type shit, but dear god, I don't recommend anyone read this. It's not good, doesn't make me look good (how terrible), just overall quite dumb. If you still want to read it, you do you, but don't you dare think that this implicates me; I am an enlightened centrist now, all quibbles of the past are beneath me, I have seen god and speak his words, my voice is that of reason, and I no longer make any mistakes ever.

I have also updated this review from an 8/10 recommended to a 5/10 Not Recommended, because ... I don't want my old ignorance to still influence the review statistics.

[So, a quick disclaimer, I like this show, so if you think that because of that my opinion is invalid, kindly piss off]

If you don’t care about the controversy and are only interested in my simple opinion on the second season alone, you can skip all the way down to THE SIMPLE REVIEW. However, if you do that and still feel like attacking me for some reason, please read the following text first, maybe that already answers your question(s).

It is rare that you find a show to be the centre of as much debate as Mushoku Tensei. No, that wouldn’t be right, you can hardly call monkeys flinging sh*t at each other a debate. There are negative aspects that I think are well worth being criticized. But for some reason everyone got so stuck on an overall pretty simple to discuss “flaw”, that they either failed to accept that this show is indeed able to tell a compelling story or were so taken over by that single thing that they can’t even begin to see anything but that.
Look, I am going to make this as simple as possible. If you don’t like this show, that is completely normal, it practically tries to make you hate its main character in an openly disgusting way, and if that puts you off, that is okay. It isn’t just me saying this, I have never even once heard a fan of this show claim that you have to like it or anything. What really gets me, though, are those people that think, that because I watch this show, I am a paedophile or whatever. There are so many things that you can watch this show for, but not once have I actually met someone that deliberately decided to watch this show entirely because the Protagonist is a groomer.

With that out of the way, we can firstly get to the necessary stuff before finally getting to the interesting bit of reviewing season two in the context of the overall narrative.
Do you notice how insane that last sentence sounds? You made me do that, so please, just chill the f*ck out when someone just doesn’t like the same things you do.

The necessary stuff: This should be obvious, if you don’t get this, maybe start reading the subtitles. Rudeus is meant to be as disgusting as he is. I have argued with so many people that just didn’t get that this is intentional. And I am not saying that the “fan service” is intentional, that would be the case with pretty much every Ecchi-Anime, what I am saying is, that it is intentional, that the fan service is uncomfortable and that Rudeus is a weirdo. He is not meant to be a good guy. These are not the depraved fantasies of the author. If you think that something that Rudeus does is detestable, then you are right, because it is not meant to be the right thing. Are you going to call out Attack on Titan for “advocating” genocide? If your answer to that question is yes, please seek help, but if your answer is as expected a clear no, then I have to ask you what your problem with Mushoku is? Well….

The Problem with Mushoku: You remember how I said that there are negative aspects that are well worth being criticized? Well, here we go: Mushoku Tensei has fan service… Yes. That is what we are attacking the show for. Fan service isn’t a new thing, the issue is that the characters that are being sexualized are children and yes, that very much is an issue. I don’t really care, because it is filtered through the perspective of Rudeus and really not as bad as what people make it sound like (Have you seen like any trigger show). BUT, and I must say, that’s a pretty big BUT, you can be offended by that, and if you are, I am not going to judge you for walking away from the show. Hell, I would even defend you, if that was your opinion. It only becomes a problem, when you start blaming the show for not being something you like. This is especially an issue for Mushoku, because it already had it hard to even be taken seriously, that is how much the recent history of Isekai has squandered its appeal. I know that I am repeating myself, but I am going to say it once again, if this show isn’t your thing, nobody is going to attack you for that. The problem here is that habit of needing to justify your opinion, no matter how miniscule it is. I am not going to call you a racist if you don’t wanna date a person with a different skin colour, this only becomes an issue if you start saying that this is an objective problem, because, listen up buddy, it is not. There are objective flaws that can turn you away from a story, but this is not one of them. You wouldn’t call out Breaking Bad because you find it morally wrong that they are dealing with meth, right?

Okay, I think we are finally done with this. If you felt like all of that was unnecessary, you clearly have never had an argument with a certain clown whose name I am not going to mention, simply because they don’t deserve it. Either way, after all that, I can finally give my simple thoughts on Mushoku Tensei's second season, without having all that on the back of my mind.

THE SIMPLE REVIEW:

New setting, new characters, new everything. Is it all as good as season one? Probably not, but it is really quite impressive how diverse this show is in its setting and tone.

Speaking of tone, we have a small step-down in atmosphere and world building. Season two quits the opening format of the first season after three episodes and replaces it with a simple anime opening. To make this clear, the opening is a banger and is amazing when compared to other anime, but then again, this show was exceptional from the start. In short, I miss the old openings, but the new one slaps. I also feel like there is a small step-down when it comes to the overall production value of the show, but it is more so a step-down from season 1 part 2. If season 2 part 2 is going to be awesome again, is something we will have to see, but this is still on the incredibly high production standard of season 1s first part.

Now, the story, this is going to be a bit difficult. The story is incredibly character rich, but it feels a bit directionless after the first three episodes. A lot of the stuff that seems like filler might just be set up for later seasons, either way, I feel like they could have done a better job moving the overall narrative. As it stands right now, season 2 feels incredibly disconnected from what came before it. There are a lot of plot threads that got picked up again and some were even wrapped together, but the mayor stuff has been entirely sidelined. Primarily, the Dead-End party has been entirely removed from the cast for this season and his been replaced with a similarly colourful but, overall, just shallow cast of students. Look, I like most of these guys, well, I would probably hate them if I ever met them, but they are a lot of fun to watch, a bit like Power really. And with that, we get to the big problem. If you don’t like these characters and especially are not interested in the redemption of Rudeus, this season is not only going to not change that, but it will probably bore you to death. This is why I must emphasize that I like this show, a lot actually, but it only really works if you have been immersed throughout the first season to such a degree that you want to see this tale be told.

A great season, but not one that stands out, that is what I am going to call it. I love it, but I am just some guy on the internet, so if you don’t, I’m okay with that. I have heard some crazy things about part 2 and I hope that I can be back in half a year to take every bit of criticism back, because this show truly deservers all the praise it is getting, even if it is fundamentally flawed.

Edit [15.04.2024]: Hi diddly do fellow neighbour, it appears that this is far and beyond, like completely unlike everything else, totally, without doubt, absolutely the most ass thing I ever wrote. I just wanted to apologize for the whole debate part, I was having a lot of discussions with people about this stuff at the time, and while I still have the same position (edit 09.06: I don't), I can't ignore how poor I argued it, a few of the things further up are just straight up bullshit, and I am sorry for underselling an industry-wide problem that we should not just silently accept. (also, the show low-key got kinda bad)

Look, I don’t think this season is terrible, if you like it, you do you. What I do believe, however, is that this season is a tremendous letdown when compared to the first. That is also why this review is marked as [Not Recommended], not because this season is garbage, but just because I wouldn’t recommend it to people who liked the first one, like myself.

Let’s get the good stuff out of the way. The animation is just as good as it was in season 1, the same goes for the direction and music, though there are fewer memorable tracks this time. Voice acting is ... as Chinese as ever, and the OP and ED are both great.

Sadly, that leaves us with the writing, and, oh boy, is there a lot to talk about. I am certain that I missed at least half of the stuff I would usually critique a show for simply because of:

1. Focus. The show flows well from episode to episode, but it doesn’t build anything. This is a problem to such a degree that I thought this was still the opening chapter/arc, both after episode 2 and episode 8. In other words, it is fun to watch, but it doesn’t use its time. The story told in these 12 episodes is a laughably small and incoherent excuse of a show. There is nothing wrong with small-scale narratives, I enjoy personal drama just as much as big-scale action set pieces, which is why a lot of my favourite shows are romances, but Link Click just manages neither. It wants to be this action-packed thrill ride, without using its time to build up an interesting conflict. It wants emotional parts while having no interesting moral or emotional conflict at its heart. Likewise, it has the production to really make you feel something, the music, the direction and animation are all more than good enough to deliver these high points, but the writing just doesn't make that possible. Everything just feels so utterly pointless, if the conflict at hand feels uninteresting on its own and also completely detachable from everything that came before it. Our leads from season one were not designed to make for good emotional drama on their own, they function phenomenally at telling other people's story, but there is just no reason for them to be this deep into a conflict this shallow. The moral conflict here is basically on the level of "I don't want bad things to happen" and then the antagonist goes "Well, that sucks 'cause I'm evil". Everything seemingly is only built to deliver that one shocking moment per episode, it doesn't matter if that moment makes sense, it just needs to be unexpected. If you disagree, then might I ask you one thing:

2. Are cliffhangers really that important? Season one had a lot of the episodes end on a cliffhanger, and while I think that these cliffhangers made, for example, the first episode a lot more engaging, they don’t lead anywhere. We are giving up narrative complexity for popcorn entertainment, and I would be completely okay with that if it didn’t also:

3. The show lies to us. The more I watched season 2, the clearer it became that the writing staff of this show did not preplan a solution for the murder mystery of the first season. If you don't get what I mean by this, might I ask why the pink-haired guy from the second season, who is the killer from the first, killed Emma? He, his name is Tianchen by the way, also didn't even show up once throughout the entire first season, which makes it pretty obvious that they didn't preplan any of this. I wouldn't mind all that if it actually made sense, but Tianchen's craziness runs counter to that of the killer presented in the first 12 episodes, especially when we take into account that he is meant to act tactically under the control of Jin Qian (evil glasses guy). It is much like the cliffhanger, it is about the expectations, not the payoff. Again, if you just want some popcorn entertainment, that’s fine, but I care about this story, I want to take it seriously, and because of that, I am going to judge it like that. If you want me to care, to get emotional like I did watching season 1, to be hyped and frightened to see what happens next, then make a narrative that works. If there is nothing but the production, that I can call good, if there is not a single episode that doesn't completely shatter my immersion through nonsensical storytelling, then I can't enjoy this season. There is so, so much wrong with it, but it really doesn't matter, even though I could count immersion breaking bullsh*t for days, it can't break the show, because its core conflict already did. All this has once again to do with cliffhangers, so if you don’t get why these cliffhangers are so bad, and maybe you don’t understand what I am mad about, let me explain it by saying:

4. Season 2 feels entirely pointless. The arc starts by rewriting the psychopathic serial killer from the first season in such a way that he can actually be compelling. With this, the cliffhanger of the first season’s ending is pointless. If you have already completed the show, you might already know where I am going with this, but if you haven’t, I am just going to say that season two ends with a cliffhanger, and oh boy, is it a good one. If each and every cliffhanger this show has presented me with throughout 20+ episodes was worthless, then why should I care about this one? The writers proved, that they did not know the answers to the mysteries they set up, that they care more about the set-up than the quality of their narrative, so why in god's name should I expect there to be a good answer to this cliffhanger? When the next season comes around, I might be shocked to see that they actually had a compelling answer after all, and that would make me very happy and look kind of dumb, but it doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I still want these payoffs to be good, but the fact that the show has conditioned me into believing that they aren't going to be, already speaks more than everything I could write. If a show manages to disappoint you to such a degree that you lose all hope in future instalments, then that is a pretty big f*ck up, and even if they manage to turn it around, if they somehow crawl out of this hole and start writing a competent third season, even then, this one would still be bad enough to disappoint me to such an extent. I don't want this show to be bad, I love its first season and for a good 6 episodes kept telling myself, that this one would be the same, but it wasn't, it is so fundamentally bad in so many ways, it ruined the show's mystery, it doesn't have a compelling plot and at best manages to be fine popcorn entertainment. We are talking about Link Click here, one of, if not the best show of 2021, the fact that I can say these things about this show, the fact that it got so bad is both incredibly disappointing and just sad.

Look, I wanted to like this show. I absolutely loved its first season, and the second didn’t change that. I find it a bit sad to know that the whole murder mystery was pointless, but even then, season 1 is still amazing and well worth your time. Likewise, I cannot ignore the obvious writing flaws, the incoherence, and the fact that the writing staff completely failed to map out the story of their show. If you can ignore all that, if you can still have a good time with this, by all accounts, don’t let me, some guy on the internet, ruin that for you. But even then, I am not going to turn away and ignore how they completely messed up one of the most entertaining pieces of television of the last few years. If I want more Link Click, I’ll rewatch season 1, because this sure as hell isn’t the show it promised to be.

[This review was reworked on 06.09.2024 and by that I mean, I reworded a few things that annoyed me, fixed writing errors and made wording more precise]

[You know, spoilers might be in here, though I think I am subtle enough in using them. You have been warned]
Is Vinland Saga’s second season good? Well, if you were to ask me… yes, most definitely. That being said, the question that I want to answer or at least give my own opinion on is the following: Is Vinland Saga’s second season as good as the first?

Let’s get the one thing out of the way that is at least somewhat objective, the adaptation. Season 2’s adaptation is overall good, as expected from Studio MAPPA, though it is still lacking when you compare it to Season ... 1. I am most definitely overcritical here, as the adaptation is still more than good enough, that you don’t really notice its shortcomings, but it is not nearly as polished as Season 1, and I quite honestly don’t even think this is debatable. The exceptions here by are firstly the voice acting, which is just as stellar as it was in season 1 and the soundtrack, which is good but never was a standout feature in the first place.

Now that we’ve got the adaptation out of the way, it’s time for the hot takes, and before I start this, I just want to say once more that this is just my opinion, you can disagree with me, and I am absolutely fine with you leaving a comment under my profile, but I ask you to at least respect my opinion, even if you don’t agree with it. After all, if you feel like defending the show from me, some guy on an online forum, then I must remind you, “You have no enemies.” (And with that, we got the obligatory reference to prove that I watched the show out of the way)

Let’s start with the most biggest and controversialist take, Season 2’s pacing is too slow.
I 100% get why people are going to disagree with me on this one but hear me out. Slow pacing is great for the more methodical nature that Season 2 is going for, but there are two problems I have with this. The first, and hopefully least controversial is, that the story arc surrounding Arnheid was neither important nor good enough to be left in the show. You would of course need to rewrite a lot of the story for this to work, and I understand why they just adapted it faithfully, though that doesn’t change the fact, that the arc is still unnecessary. Yes, it is a conflict that is, subtly used for the overall message of the show, “You have no enemies”. It shows us what happens when people try to solve their problems with violence, and why doing that is a bad thing. My problem with this is, that we already got an example for just that in the main conflict near the End which I can’t go into detail about, because of spoilers. The other and probably way, and I mean way more controversial part about the pacing is, that the time the viewer is given to think about the show’s message is completely wasted. Why is that? Because it is not interesting enough to be thought about. You know what, I am going to make an entire section about that.

The morality behind Vinland Saga is a great one, and I am not going to critique how moral it is, that is beside the point. The question I want to ask is if the moral is interesting enough to be the central point of a 24-episode-long show, and if anyone actually cares. Now, I can only speak for myself here, and I got no experience with murdering people and that stuff, but I don’t think that you need to tell the viewer, that violence is bad. That is something you can tell a preschooler, but not the target audience of the story. The message is of course a little deeper than that, but I still think it is not nearly as methodical as the show makes it seem. I mean, the show can go ahead and scream “Pacifism is cool” all day long, but my reaction is still just going to be “Okay, I guess so”. Maybe I am just going insane here, but are there really people that stand up and go: “Oh yeah! Pacifism is cool!”. I mean, you would need to be completely new to the concept of pacifism to even find this remotely interesting, right? RIGHT?

But a show isn’t just its morals, so let’s start to look at the other stuff going on. Give me a second, it gotta be here somewhere…wait… Oh yes, I found it, there is the son of the farm’s owner, who wants to become a warrior. This gives us a counter perspective to Thorfinn, which also reflects how much Thorfinn has grown since season 1. And then, the son, becomes a pacifist, oh for goodness’s sake. Look, I don’t want to be too harsh here, but season 2 is about Thorfinn and how he grows. And Thorfinn’s growth is sadly defined by, well, his journey towards pacifism. I am not going to say that it is a negative that the show overall reflects this, it really isn’t because it only underlines the morals and strengthens both Thorfinn’s but also everyone else journey, as they are all bounded in the same struggle of survival and finding a place for themselves. But as should be clear by now, I don’t think all that highly of these morals, so I really don’t care, that the whole show revolves around them. Does it make the show better? Probably, at least, if you are interested in the moral conflict. Does it make the show more entertaining? Maybe if you need an 8-hour Ted-talk on why fighting is bad.

To end this, I am just going to repeat a few small things. Firstly, season 2 is good, it just isn’t as good as season 1. Secondly, the moral conflict is well-made but shallow. Third, the characters are well-written but not as entertaining, because they all feed into the same morals. And lastly, everything I said up till now is just my opinion, which might be different from yours. Leave a comment, if something made you confused, or if you have any other questions about Vinland Saga or anything else I watched. Though I must ask, that if you feel like critiquing me, which is absolutely fine, please enable your comments, because I want to at least be able to respond.

It is honestly astounding to me how much I ended up liking this manga.

I watched the 2018 anime adaptation of this manga around 18 months ago and, well, it was fine. I had an all-right time watching it and I gave it a 7/10. If someone asked me yesterday to recount every show I watched in the last few years, I am certain that this would have been one of the shows I would have forgotten.

Bloom Into You is a Yuri manga that I find to be part of the pinnacle of its genre, that being romance. This is to the point where I ... am actually kind of disappointed that this is a Yuri manga. I personally don’t have anything against this manga being the way it is, the problem I am referring to is more so about what the genre as a whole has become over the years because at least in its current state, I find Yuri as a genre to be about as well respected as Harem. This is a real shame as, as should be obvious by now, there are a lot and I mean a lot of qualities to Bloom Into You that make for an entertaining and thought-provoking read. All that being said, there are elements I want to critique before continuing to praise the manga for the many things it does better than almost everything I have ever read.

The first problem and the one that stuck with me at the beginning was how the situation the three main characters find themselves in is contrived but more importantly below the standard that the rest of the manga reaches. It is not a good sign when the first thing you think of reading something is Citrus. No, to let me clarify this is by far not that bad but “lesbian love triangle” just doesn’t sound like anything worth my time. The fact that their teacher was also lesbian didn’t help either and only made me more concerned that just maybe the entire town might secretly be a “lesbian love panopticon” like in Citrus, fuck Citrus. Luckily this story actually treats its readers with a shred of respect, though that being said we get to our next problem.

The first and especially second arc of the manga are very on the nose about what they are saying, to the point where they literally turn the emotional situation of one of the main characters into a theatre play. This would have been fine with me if I didn’t also just find the play they presented to be even more on the nose, which I can forgive because it’s a play, it needs to be on the nose, but it is also just nonsensically written. What really gets me about this, is that it wasn’t intentional the play was even written by a student everyone always praises for her writing to the point where she literally wins awards for it. Apart from the play dialogue from time to time just doesn’t feel natural to the point where Yuu’s monologue which, while thought-provoking, made Light Yagami look like the main girl from “A Silent Voice”.

Okay, that’s all, now to the good stuff:

The Manga is absolutely beautiful and I am so happy that the scans I read were in high enough quality to take advantage of the amazing artwork. The story is also elevated by creative use of panelling and symbolism which I do not know enough about to go into depth but I noticed them, so that’s a positive. It is also really really cute.

The characters are competently written and what surprised me the most I didn’t hate any of them. I was expecting to hate a certain character, everyone who read the manga will know who I am talking about, but she turned out to be really chill with the most offensive thing she did being, taking time away from the main characters. Out of which one was really enjoyable and the other, well let’s just say she had a lot of problems.

The story is a bit of a slow burner that tries to be a bit too dramatic with a few of its plot beats in the first half but never to the point that it bothered me. There were certain elements that, while I wouldn’t say felt forced, seemed to be implemented to force conflict and nothing else.

This is a last category I would not normally have but I think it is important enough that I need to write this. The next part is about the ending so full spoilers ahead, you have been warned.

If someone asked me 2 years from now, without me having read the last six chapters of this manga, to recount every manga I read in the last few years, I am certain that this would be one of the manga I would have forgotten.

For me at least, almost everything I like this manga for can be credited to its ending. I find it to be cathartic and immensely satisfying for a lot of reasons, but it also has a huge emphasis on closure. I honestly don’t care if someone were to make a point that from an artistic standpoint, it would have more value if Yuu and Touku didn’t get together, sometimes you just need stories that make you feel good, and this is just that for me.

[end of spoilers]

I kind of miss just enjoying something for what it is, something that becomes harder and harder with every show you watch, every story you experience, because as you become a better critic you slowly lose the ability to really immerse yourself in these stories. Constantly having to judge and critique everything, while fun in its own way takes a lot of the entertainment out of the media you consume. I think I haven’t liked something this much since I finished Kaguya-Sama over a year ago, which scares me in a way I can't quite describe. It becomes rarer and rarer that I find something I wholeheartedly love, and this manga does just that for me. It isn’t perfect but I loved it nonetheless. If I were to judge it, I would give it a 9 out of 10 but trying to rate it, it can’t be anything but a 10 out of 10 for me.

[This is as much a review of Season 1 as it is of anything that comes after it, that being said, I am not going to directly spoil any part of the plot]

Dr.Stone might just have one of the greatest premises in fiction. I find this statement to be a bit hyperbolic, but I fully agree with it. Dr.Stone’s premise is as genius as it is simple, sadly the show is a lot simpler.

I am going to start this review by saying that I didn’t really have a good time with this anime, I didn’t hate it (for the most time) but I was quite ... disappointed. To be perfectly honest I still kind of am because I to this day believe that Dr.Stone should have been a Seinen. Maybe it is just the fact that I will always believe that a more mature story is a better one, but I also just enjoy a show way more if I can actually take it seriously, and with that, we get into our first problem.

Every show can use comedy and if done right it will ALWAYS make it better. This is simply because you can’t have a consistently dark show that at the same time makes you deeply care about the characters. Even something like berserk needed comedic moments beforehand to let something like the eclipse hit as hard as it did. That being said, while I do find some of the jokes in this show funny, it completely loses any tension in return, which would be fine, I still had a good time with something like Konosuba and especially Grand Blue (which you should only read and under no circumstances watch) if it didn’t try to have a serious story in the meantime. This is why I find this story so disappointing because if it actually carried through with a more mature and better-developed cast, this show could have been an absolute masterpiece. What I wanted from this show were two rivaling factions trying to out-evolve each other in a technical war spanning multiple generations (that part isn’t as important). And while this is the story I wanted, there are a lot more elements that could have been incorporated like the tribes being dragged into the conflict between the two factions allowing for a third perspective on top of the already quite complex baseline I established in the sentence before. Geography is another element that could have been taken into the story (something they actually kind of start doing in season 3) and building territories and clear borders from the ground up, dividing the at the start close factions, as they form a front line between them and start expending across the rest of Japan, dividing it into something like North and South Korea. But that’s all of lesser importance, the one thing I wanted from this show, if it actually followed through with two factions, was that they would engage in a technological arms race, which finally brings us to the one thing this show does, and I must emphasize this, amazingly well:

The science part of this show is by far its strongest aspect, especially because of how non-science-bullshit-ish it is. Now saying this I feel like I must point out that I am not in any way educated in the fields of chemistry and physics, that being said, while I did notice the show simplifying a lot of the processes required to make certain things, the concepts on which these processes were based on, were logical. This part of the show, which I like to call its Robinson Crusoe aspect, is what sells it and makes it watchable, even with the many flaws the show has. But again, while the processes were close enough to reality, I would have liked it to make these simplified processes, well, more real. I know that a lot of people think this is completely pointless, but I am of the firm belief that it is again that sense of realism that is missing, which would be fatal for a show about science if it hadn’t already lost that with its over the top comedic tone. Though this part is getting too negative again, and I want to end this section by saying, this is good, it could be improved, but the science, it’s fun.

You know what isn’t fun? The story of this show. It is honestly astounding to me how bad this show’s story is, especially after seeing how much the author must have cared for it. I know I just said some mean things about the science aspect but writing all that still must have taken a lot of work, something that can’t be said about the story. You know what, you can hate me for this, but Sword Art Online’s first part had better story writing than this. Now, I do think that a lot of SAO’s mistakes, especially in later arcs are a lot more offensive than anything that ever happens in this show, but that being said, this show has that dumb “I am actually the final boss”-plot twist three times, progressively getting worse with each one. There is a scene in the second season, where a character says something like “We need to do this thing quick, or the big evil dude and his goon are going to show up here” and they do it, there is nothing indicating a failure, but the bad guys are still there, and it is never explained how they noticed them that quickly. Overall, characters just do what they need them to do, but while that is the case, they at least only rarely act out of character. Though while that's true, this show just has a character for everything, like really whenever the show needs something, it just uses the character that is magically good at that thing, need something to power your machine? Here’s a buffed guy. Need something to trick a person into thinking they are hearing their favorite singer (seems oddly specific, btw that song sucked, change my mind)? Here have a mentalist that is also great at card tricks, which he can for some reason use on flowers, and has the magical ability to imitate every voice with ease. Just to clarify, this is a minor problem, most times the characters are fitting, so you don’t really notice it, but that is more so because the characters weren’t designed to adhere to any kind of logic, but to just do the one thing they are good at.

On the topic of characters: I don’t like ‘em. Some are worse than others, with annoying blond girl really taking the cake for the most annoying piece of sh*t (which annoying blond girl I am talking about, I will leave for you to decide). Senku is probably my favorite, the only thing I really can’t stand about him is how the show portrays him as this evil maniacal madman who would do anything for progress, and then all he does is make a car. Maybe Senku was just ahead of his time, but I don’t think that the creator of the car knew what evil scheme they had released up on the world. Chrome is, eh, fine. Gen is fine, probably even one of the better characters, but this show’s cast just doesn’t have any depth. The main antagonist for the first two seasons, who is one of the most complex characters in the show, has probably as much depth as Akihiko Kayaba, to continue using our SAO comparison, but that guy at least felt interesting until the very end, when it was revealed that even the author had no idea what he was doing.

That leaves us with the adaptation, which is, again, fine. I don’t have high expectations when it comes to TMS-Entertainment. They did make shows like Fruits Basket and Takagi-san, but at the same time, they made Rent-a-Girlfriend, which negates all the good things this studio ever produced. The animation is fine, there aren’t any stand-out fights, and the backgrounds aren’t all that great either. It does have a few creative ways in how it depicts the science aspects, especially with the road maps, and the character animation is quite expressive. This however didn’t work for me at all, the expressive animation didn’t feel fluid enough to make me go “This is fun” and the exaggerated reactions only underlined why I didn’t like the characters and only furthered my disappointment with the show, like I already explained. The music is forgettable, I am not sure if it is good, I literally don’t remember a single track, but that also means that the music choices aren’t terrible. Voice acting is something I don’t like to command on as I don’t speak Japanese, but I think the voice actors did a really good job at capturing the absurdist nature of the characters, so naturally I hate them (this is a joke, I do not actually have anything against them, please don't get mad at me). That leaves the openings and endings, I don’t remember a single one of the EDs, but the first OP is pretty good, especially the start where the singer says “Ohayo Sekai!” Japanese for good morning world, after which he sings “good morning world” in English. The second OP is also ok, but I am not that big of a fan of the third one. The fourth one is a lot better but at the same time quite forgettable, in part because it’s the fourth OP and really doesn’t have anything to distinguish it from the other.

In conclusion, I am just going to say that, I really didn’t like this show, it has too many flaws I think too many people are willing to overlook because of its good elements, which are actually quite alright. It does have elements to distinguish itself from all the other shounen titles but fails to really become its own thing like something like Chainsaw Man, which is way more worth your time both manga and anime. I don’t see anything you gain from this and to be honest, find the claim that this will help you in chemistry class as hilarious as it is stupid. If there is any part of you that just enjoys watching videos or documentaries on things that you didn’t know you had an interest in just to go out of it thinking that you are never going to use that knowledge, there might be something here for you. That being said, be aware, I am one of those people and just like me, you might be disappointed by this show’s shortcomings.

(I had a bit of an argument with a friend recently, so I want to make clear that you can like this show, I've got absolutely nothing against people having a good time with it. Don't let me spoil your fun, just be happy that you were able to enjoy it as much as you did, sadly I just didn't, so please accept that.)

*This might contain some minor spoilers, though we are talking about Jojo here, so there really isn't a story to spoil.*
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The first part of this review is solely about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood:

Depending on how you want to look at it, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood is either the worst or the best part of the entire series. Let me explain:
Judging it from a critical perspective Part 1 is almost definitely Jojo’s worst part in all aspects. The art is of course the worst out of the entire series as it is Araki’s first work (in the Jojo series). Likewise, ... the Story is equally crude and nonsensical (a theme that, as will become apparent as you continue watching/reading, carries through all parts). On the other hand, it has one advantage over almost every other part: its length. In other words, if you don’t like Jojo, this part isn’t going to change that, but it is a way better experience than having to watch the agonizingly long part 3. As I personally didn’t really enjoy any Jojo parts except parts 4 and 7, I found this to be surprisingly watchable compared to most other parts. It is also hugely carried by expectations as almost everyone is going to tell you that this is just something you have to get through to get to the good stuff.

The problems really arise if you look at it as an indivual story, which it is. This is just from beginning to end a very crude and poorly developed story, and even the overall quite good production by David Production can’t correct that. Araki is undeniably a great artist but from the very beginning, he had huge problems writing more than individual fight scenes, something that carries through almost every following part. Due to its poor writing, I can’t really recommend this, though that kind of goes for all of Jojo. But even then, it is undeniable that, while I didn’t enjoy Jojo’s bizarre adventure, a lot of people did. So, while I, in all honesty, don’t believe that the series is good and even worth your time the rest of the community clearly disagrees with my sentiment and who am I to tell them that they are wrong in enjoying what they do.

Even if I can’t really recommend it, just by looking at the overall reaction, your chances are quite high that you are going to enjoy this, so go ahead and give it a try if you want. Though if you do, so I think you should skip this and maybe the following two parts along with it. I know that I just made a lot of people angry, but I can 100% promise you that you can start by watching/reading part 4 without having missed anything. There are going to be two characters that appeared before that you will not recognize, but I don’t think that anyone with more than 2 brain cells can’t recognize that and is going to seriously be confused. So as long as you are aware of the fact that you skipped parts, there really isn’t any problem with it, as the structure of Jojo was designed to allow readers to pick it up as it was airing.

In conclusion: This is a terrible story with its length being its only returning quality. I would recommend skipping it but if you really want to watch it, it is at least short enough to not take away all your time.
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The second part of this review is solely about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency:

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency marks the first cross-country adventure in the series, though with little insight into the cultures of those countries with the exception of Nazi-Germany, which they don’t even visit. In the end, the locations visited can only really be distinguished by the weather which is a real shame as at least for me that is one of Jojo’s biggest strengths. This is also something Araki hugely improves on in part three, though I have no clue how accurate the depiction of different cultures really is. But apart from kick-starting the whole adventure aspect and turning “Jojo’s Bizarre Time Dio made Jack the Ripper jump out of a Horse” into the titular “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” it is also just as terribly written as part 1.

I know I just made a few people angry with that statement so let me clarify a bit:
Part 2 is definitely more enjoyable than Part 1, but that is not due to the writing, which stayed equally terrible. The improvement over Part 1 can pretty much solely be attributed to Joseph Joester, our new protagonist. He is a lot more fun and creative than Jonathan, he is also a lot goofier but in a good way. Apart from that, we have a new mentor figure and a new sidekick, but they are just as bland as in part 1, so nothing really changed there. The new big evil is an even bigger evil that really makes you question why they spent 48 episodes in part 3 hunting and killing a vampire, something that Joseph does in literally one episode (though to be fair the vampire comes to him, and he doesn’t need to hunt him down as they do in part 3 which takes up around 90% of the show’s runtime, so it isn’t really a fair comparison, but it’s still kinda true).

Sadly Joseph doesn’t solve all the problems the show still has and while a lot of people are able to look over them, I just couldn’t so here are most of my problems:
The antagonists are far from an improvement over the already bland Dio Brando from part 1 and just making them stronger really doesn’t work. The fights while sometimes quite funny (especially the fight against a vampire that shows up at the beginning of the part) can’t impress with their animation, which for me at least was actually their smallest problem. They are not bad fights on their own, but they are way too ludicrous thus removing any sort of strategic element, even if the show is trying to convince you that it was all just strategy (this is one of Jojo’s largest problems and something Araki was never able to fix). I personally find strategy to be the most important element of any fight together with stakes, something Jojo most of the time fails spectacularly with the exception of one fight (you will know when you watch it). Sadly, with fights being Jojo’s central element there really isn’t anything to keep me watching apart from anticipation of how good the next parts are going to be, which is kind of sad as I think a good fight can elevate MOST stories to a whole new level if they are done well enough. For example, just look at what is in my opinion the best fight ever put to film, even if it’s more a battle than a fight, the Shiganshina-arc in the second part of Attack on Titans’ third season. I honestly think it’s hard to find a person with a critical perspective to not agree that this is power escalation done in the best way possible. I’m not going into too much detail as this is still a Jojo review, but no matter how much you like this show you can’t convince me that it presents even a single fight that uses stakes as well as strategy in a way that is intense, believable and actually strategic.

In conclusion, I would say that Battle Tendency is overall enjoyable but has little substance and if you aren’t a fan of Shounen and are in any way interested in actually good story and character writing this show/manga offers little to you, also, don’t even start watching/reading Jojo it really doesn’t offer anything to you apart from some truly amazing art.

Grand Blue might just be the most surprising piece of fiction I have ever read. It is not my favorite and for me at least, it is far from being a masterpiece, but that didn’t stop it from being way better than anything I would have expected.
Grand Blue by Inoue, Kenji and Yoshioka, Kimatake tells the story of Iori Kitahara who moved away from his home to the coast of Shizuoka where he moves in with his uncle, who owns a diving shop, as well as his two daughters. There he meets the diving club of the university he came all the way there to ... attend. After getting wasted together with them, he joins the diving club the next day, after which he gets a lot more wasted a lot more often.

As you might be able to conclude from the plot summary, this is a comedy manga before all else. It is absurdist, though never forgets its own rules. The characters might seem strange, but they always act in character even if that character is an alcoholic bisexual whore*, an alcoholic (ex)otaku with social anxiety or dare I say it, strangest of them all, a non-alcoholic who in addition also has a diving obsession. The colorful cast of the manga bounces off each other in new and creative ways in almost every chapter and the result is comedic tension that could even rival Kaguya-Sama, which I consider to be both the pinnacle of the comedy (and romance) genre as well as one of the best and my favorite manga/anime of all time. The really surprising part about this was, at least to me, that I am not alone in this opinion. The piece of fiction I would call closest to this would be the anime adaptation of Konosuba, which has a quite respectable score of around 8.25. Now, just to make this clear, I think that this is a lot better than Konosuba in almost every way, but it is still a comedy manga with not really anything else to say. This is what makes it so astounding to me that it has a score of above 9 (9.03 as of writing this review).

Part of the reason for it being this beloved is definitely its art, which is I would say perfect. That doesn’t mean that it has the best art, but that the art is just so good that it delivers perfectly in every joke and as long as it is able to do this, I don’t think you can call it anything but perfect, even if it’s not the most beautiful manga of all time. For reverence just look at the anime which is just, and I am sorry to say this, terrible in compression to this. A proper adaption of this manga would need a SpyXFamily-level production and even then, I think it would be hard to match it.

In conclusion, read it for the vibes, for the comedy, for the characters and don’t read it for the plot.

*Hey there pal, it is me, mister edit-man, it is the 23rd of April 2024 right now, gosh, crazy to believe it has already been a year, either way, I am here to say that the word "whore" is a poor and overall pretty sexist description of Azusa (the character I am talking about here) and I, as the pedant that I am can't leave something like this without at least adding my thoughts. The simple solution would be to stop reading my own reviews, but hey, I am a massive narcissist, so that's not gonna happen. To get back on topic, having a healthy sex life is not something to attack someone for yada yada yada, slut-shaming is evil and so on, you know the drill. That's all, sorry for saying a bad thing a year ago, let's just say I've learned that one over the years.