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When I first started this, I was ready to give it, like, a 5 because there was genuinely nothing I had to say about it. It was just Very Boring.

That's still true but I do have a bit more to say.

First, positives.

I feel bad for shitting on this show not for the mangaka but for Orange. This show looks pretty good and considering I also hated Beastars, it just looks like I'm an Orange denier and yeah, not true, it's not like it being boring is Orange's fault. It looks very fluid and there is a good amount of stuff I don't think would work ... as well in 2D like the alloys or the gems breaking apart.

The soundtrack is pretty good although the OP is kinda trash.

All these characters are kind of caked up? They've got a hell of a curve in the back. Good for you, Studio Orange.

...if one of my three positives is that the characters have fat asses, you know this show can't be that good (unless it's an ecchi which it's not).

The story feels weird and, like, disted?

The second paragraph of the synopsis on MAL says:
"Phosphophyllite, also known as Phos, is a young and fragile Gem who dreams of helping their friends in the war effort. Instead, they are told to compile an encyclopedia because of their delicate condition. After begrudgingly embarking on this task, Phos meets Cinnabar, an intelligent gem who has been relegated to patrolling the isolated island at night because of the corrosive poison their body creates. After seeing how unhappy Cinnabar is, Phos decides to find a role that both of the rejected Gems can enjoy. Houseki no Kuni follows Phos' efforts to be useful and protect their fellow Gems."

You would think Cinnabar was an important character but they're just kinda like "oh hey Phos, lowkey gonna let the Lunarians kill me (author's note: these gems can't die, who gives a shit, they're probably just gonna go to the Moon and reclaim them anyway), is that cool with you?"

They're kind of a standoffish asshole and don't really matter, it's more about that final sentence where Phos tries to be useful and the way they do that is... questionable?

They introduce a new gem and they die in like 2 episodes and then Phos goes from their first half personality to a Badass(tm) and it's corny and lame. Instead of actually working around Phos being a relatively soft gem, they just give them superpowers (that already correspond to other gems in the force, mind you) and never really bring it up again.

Speaking of other gems, there are way too many gems in this series.

This is 12 episodes and there are like 24 gems and not very many of them get a character at all, let alone a good one.

Rutile is A Doctor who likes dissecting things and doesn't like being called a quack
Diamond is Sweet and apparently not very good at their job
Bort is ALSO a standoffish asshole but they are good at their job and only conveys what matters or whatever
The Amethyst twins are twins. And bang their heads together.
Alexandrite is a Lunarian freak who researches Lunarians but crashes out when they see one
Yellow Diamond is old and fast
Red Beryl likes fashion
Obsidian likes weapons

It is no exaggeration when I say by the time I finish my next series, I will barely who any of these guys are.

Speaking of the Lunarians, they are just kind of some sort of eldritch abomination. They are hinted at the very end to have some sort of sentience beyond what we normally see and they are hypothetically part of a trio with the gems and the fish people (oh yeah, there are fish people. They also don't matter after a couple episodes). And eldritch abominations can work for the main antagonistic force, that's kind of what Madoka Magica did with the witches, but then you need to tell an interesting story around the protagonists.

And it has no real thread to go on, just whispers of arcs.

Should we care about Cinnabar? Phos and Cinnabar don't interact once for, like, half the series after the first episode and the only solution to giving Cinnabar a fun job they'd enjoy we see proposed is a job that explicitly isn't fun.

Should we care about Diamond? They seem to disappear after Bort starts teaming up with Phos.

Should we care about Alexandrite? We barely know her. It's even worse for Padparadscha.

Even Phos is a completely different character from the gem we knew at the beginning of the series.

(it's also worth noting that this show does not end on a satisfying note and you'd need to read the manga after, fwiw)

I really wanted to like this series but it was just a boring slog with no characters I could get attached to. If nothing else, give it up to Orange for trying to make the best of a bad situation.

So recently, I decided to watch every single Crunchyroll AOTY candidate over the years and the first random draw I got was this. This is, like, one of maybe three anime I hadn't heard of prior to looking at the list so I was curious if it'd stick out as a hidden gem or something deservedly lost to time or what.

I thought it was solid but not spectacular.

I like the art style, it's pretty and well-animated. It's not a visual masterclass but for what it sets out to do, it does it well. I liked the more textured feel you could see on stuff like ... Hongou's hair.

For what it's worth, I thought this was going to lean into a Shimoneta-style of show where it'd be focused on sexual humor and thankfully, that's not what it's like (...I say, having Shimoneta rated higher than this), it's more of a character-focused show focusing on the different ways our "maidens" go about the blossoming of love in their hearts, which I do appreciate. That being said, it can be really funny when it wants to be.

The characters are kind of a mixed bag.

Kazusa is kind of a whatever main character. She's given kind of a "trad" relationship compared to some of the other girls and she doesn't have the personality quirks of someone like Sonezaki to make up for it. She's very "scenery protagonist" pilled to me where, like, she's kinda there and fades into the background, idk if that makes sense but I didn't really care for her. Her relationship with Izumi was cute, I guess, but it leans into a love triangle later on and it falls prey like many before it to the Losing Heroine curse where the Losing Heroine is much more interesting. I wouldn't say I wanted the LH to WIN per se but she was more interesting, Kazusa's kind of bland tapioca pudding to me.

Speaking of Sonezaki, I enjoyed her. Favorite character. I do dislike that they gave her the meganekko class president special for like 4 episodes and then they were like "yeah, just give her An Attractive Appearance for the rest of the show" and other than the OP, we never get to see it again. That gripe aside, I liked her role as the straight-laced club president who fell in love despite that. Her (platonic) relationship with the gyaru girl was actually kind of cool to see, it was surprisingly kind of engaging for a girl who could've otherwise been the "fake-ass bitch who gets pwned when the class prez turns out to be a hottie". I felt that where they go for the last couple episodes with her arc were kind of over-the-top and rushed. Since all the girls are more or less "maidens", it would've been interesting to see them tap into one of them dealing with the jealousy of having a boyfriend who has done stuff with other girls but it's just kind of quickly introduced and then glossed over in a way that makes me wonder why they even bothered. But otherwise, I liked her relationship and arc with her love interest, pretty good.

...I don't really have a good bridge for this, so let's go from my favorite to my least favorite. Momoko was such an annoying little pest. I like her arc in theory but it didn't work for me. Her "love interest" seemed, at least to me, to be a mostly stand-up guy (besides the part on the field trip where he came off as a little clingy) but then he does a giant heel turn in Episode 10 that didn't succeed at making me like Momoko more, it just made me like her "love interest" less. Not to mention she asks Kazusa "hey, would you rather fuck me or our attractive male teacher" and she crashes out when Kazusa goes "well... I'm kinda into boys so...". It made her look like a manipulative little creep, especially when they kinda push her more towards Sugawara in the end anyway. I do appreciate the attempt to add a lesbian into the story but making her such a standoffish prick towards him when he seemed to be an okay guy for most of the story just kinda made me dislike her, especially when she herself could be kind of pushy towards her own (actual) love interests at times.

Speaking of Sugawara, Sugawara! I liked her presence in the story but where she fails is her first "love interest". That creepy-ass pedophile made me want his bozo, clown shoes, no drip looking self OFF the screen in a visceral manner. And he's such a major part of the middle portion that it just made me sour a little bit on the show. She eventually gets a better arc but starting off with her former director (especially since he is explicitly NOT going to stop with Sugawara, he is still out there prowling for another little girl to creep on) was a hell of a wrong foot.

...although it's kinda weird, because they DO do a good arc featuring a student and her older love interest. Hongou's literature arc was only kinda okay but it does flourish into arguably my favorite arc of the 5 girls even if I do like Sonezaki better overall. Her love interest is an interesting character in his own right and gets, for a boy in this show, a pretty decent arc, his own love interest separate from Hongou, and a chance to do something in the story besides "be a love interest". Watching Hongou struggle to seduce her love interest in the way that she did, being a high school girl in the face of a teacher who wasn't going to swing that low, it was interesting.

I was kinda high on this show at the beginning, but I can't help but feel it's already going into that 7/10 territory where even by the end of this Crunchyroll AOTY candidate project, I'm barely gonna anything about the show.

That being said, I do think it's a decent enough show. I liked the majority of the arcs (it's really Momoko and, like, the first half slash 2/3rds of Sugawara's that I don't like), it's a well-produced show, it's not the worst thing.

When I first saw this in July of 2024, I thought it was really good, good enough to be in my top 10 and for me to give it a strong 8/10, an already very good and generous score from me.

Seeing it now 11 months later, somehow I UNDERRATED this show.

This is a generational anime the likes of which we might not see for decades.

I think the art style is a little goofy-looking when you first start watching it. In particular, the running scenes can look a little unnatural, but I think it really works with this anime. Seeing the body horror and gory violence ... and stylish animation, I think it's something to be expected from Science Saru to have weird-looking shows that end up justifying the animation style and more.

Devilman the manga started in 1972 so Crybaby was adapting a manga that was around 4 and a half decades old at the time. I ittedly haven't read the manga cover to cover and won't be talking about how Crybaby adapts Devilman as a result but one thing I will note is as a result, the original manga designs are kind of... old fashioned. Not BAD by any means but I do think redeg the characters a little was a smart choice.

The sound design is pretty good too. I think the OP is kind of... understated, but I think it'd look kind of goofy if Crybaby had some MHA-ass OP in it, even if that OP is good. After watching this anime twice, I can't imagine a different OP, even with a remixed version of Devilman no Uta in it (performed by Queen Bee of all bands, very based). In general, I think the word(s) of the day is/are "thumping beats". That's not to say they're all beat-focused, D.V.M.N. is a very prominent theme in the show and it's not beat-oriented (and is also a very good song).

One of my main gripes when I first saw it was how much it felt like the sex and violence pervaded the show and felt like jingling car keys to paper over a weaker first half (which is one of the things I disagree with now, the first half is a banger in its own right). This is probably my own biases but I do feel like the sex/naked bodies is a little distracting and over the top for me but overall, this was less of an issue for me.

Considering how hard Akira has to try to keep his humanity and not crash out and go Devilman on people's asses, I do think the hyperviolence and sexual imagery is somewhat warranted, especially when it leads to cool body horror like in the first episode where the two mix.

Although I think a couple production choices are my other biggest flaws.

1. There are a lot of scenes at night which is fine but it's pretty dark in those scenes. I don't know if you're supposed to see barely anything but my monitor is pretty bright and even then, it was a little troublesome/annoying to make stuff out.

2. Ryo speaks in English a lot (Idk how much you'd define to be "a lot" but he does it several times in extended scenes over the course of 10 episodes) in this show and the VA's accent is pretty thick so it's kind of hard and/or annoying to make out what he's saying. I got the gist of it but I really had to tune in to hear what he was saying. Part of this is also on the subtitles for considering English to be the time where they can skimp out on the subtitles which is pretty shitty not only because of the thick accent but because if you're watching with someone who is deaf... uh... get fucked, I guess?

I think the main characters of the show are all pretty strong.

We've got our titular Devilman and our titular Crybaby, Akira Fudo. I think the main theme of the show for me was the power of love and that shows in how Akira and his love interest Miki Makimura were raised. We can see that Akira and Miki have a very solid foundation and are raised in a peaceful, loving, stable family and that shows in how kind-hearted and good-natured they are as people. Even in the chaotic, shitty world of Crybaby, Akira and Miki choose to be good people who would even help people who are chastised as demons.

This also reflects in how Miki treats the rapper crew who are treated as street urchins who'd rob, tote guns, basically your average street thuggery. Miki's willing to stick up for them even with how they treated Akira earlier in the show. And this is paid in kind when one of the rappers turns out to be a pretty cool dude who'd stick up for Akira and Miki later on.

Speaking of rappers, Miki Kuroda (aka Miko/the red haired one). Showing how being "the other Miki" beats down on her and having her develop a relationship with one of the other rappers just because he took the time to see Kuroda for KURODA was really cute. It was even one of the things I appreciated about the first half on the first go around. I do wish we could see more highlights of MikixMiki instead of just Kuroda being bitter about being the other Miki for the majority of the show but I do think she's a good character for the time she gets.

My favorite character, however, is Akira's counterpart, Ryo Asuka. I think he's a man of contradictions because he represents the absence of love. After all, if there's no love, there can be no sorrow, right? While Kuroda's been "othered" for a lot of her life, I think Ryo's very interesting because he clearly has someone in his heart but he just CAN'T understand love. RyoxAkira is such a fascinating relationship that's at the core of why I love this show.

The white-clad man of light who can't understand love and the black-clad devil who could cry for anyone.

Even in the very first scene, he opens fire on a group of ruffians and he never really thaws out. He never gets to hang out with Miki or eat dinner surrounded by a family that adores him. His apartment is big but it's cold and clinical. He has a giant pool that he never bothers swimming in until Akira forces him into it. Even his secretary just does her job with an unnatural smile and leaves him alone. Even the way they fight is fundamentally different. Akira gets up and close with people, fighting with his fists and feet. Ryo uses guns and heavy machinery. Akira runs and flies places. Ryo uses his fancy car.

There's a baton scene near the end showing Kuroda ing it to Makimura who es it to Akira who tries to it to Ryo but he just drops it. There's just a fundamental disconnect there and he doesn't understand until it is forced upon him to understand. No wonder he is a cold-blooded sociopath, he doesn't value human life in the same way we do.

The show is about love, sadness, "otherness" (see: the presence of the rapping poor street hoodlums, a lot of them who have good hearts. Also how Devilmen are treated despite having human hearts, Miki Makimura vs. Kuroda, Makimura's heritage, etc.) but overall, it's just an emotionally devastating and resonant show.

The second half also touches on mass hysteria, societal breakdown, and how quickly "the others" can be turned into public enemy number one, to be killed and scorned and I thought it worked really well, it's like night and day with the first half.

I'm trying to avoid spoilers as much as I can because I think this show is best going in unspoiled.

It's a masterpiece that is every bit as relevant as it was 7 years ago. Emotionally powerful and resonant while being pulse-pounding and exciting at the same time, it's a show that can only be made when a visionary director in his prime works with iconic source material and remakes it for a modern time that could use the morals more than ever.

If you've never seen it, please do yourself a favor and watch this 10/10 masterpiece.

--- note: this is a review of the entire Heaven's Feel trilogy. I won't be going out of my way to spoil this specific movie but HF movies 1 and 2 are fair game for me imo ---

I was pretty harsh to UBW.

I was not a very huge fan and I just kind of assumed this super clean, polished, uber-animated Ufotable style wasn't going to fit Fate as well as the Deen one did imo.

After watching the Heaven's Feel trilogy... to be honest, maybe UBW just kinda sucked because this was even better than Deen, let alone UBW.

It's generally speaking about as well animated as ... UBW in most shots. There are some different/"shinier" lighting choices and the fights definitely benefit from a cinematic perspective but for a jump from TV to movie, it's not, like, huge imo.

The fights do look amazing, I was blown away by the Berserker fight in the second movie. In general, I think the fights look less "cutsceney" than they did in UBW. Obviously, you can tell they poured a lot of budget into it and maybe it's just because I liked Heaven's Feel more in general, but I didn't get that big of a "cutscene"/"budgetslop" impression in this trilogy (which, considering I never had a problem with it in Demon Slayer either to my recollection, it might just genuinely be that I didn't like UBW to begin with).

That being said, I thought the third movie started dipping back into that, especially the fight in the cave. It was kind of disorienting and eventually, I was kind of like "okay, where even ARE we in this cave anymore?"

I think the Aimer EDs for the first and second movies are pretty great, the third one is... okay.

Some of the songs though are really good in the OST. There were some thumping beats which kinda rocked.

Before I get into the characters, I wanna talk a bit about how HF sets itself apart from Deen and UBW tone-wise.

UBW felt like an... alternate path from Deen, so to speak. They both kind of followed a giant death game where Shirou summons Saber, Shinji's a jackass, Caster is Castering and trying to summon her own Holy Grail, we've got the Saber/Assassin fight at the gate, Gilgamesh makes his appearance and everything pivots to stopping him, so on and so forth.

I felt very underwhelmed by, given how much time UBW got (because keep in mind, UBW is longer than Deen by 2 episodes/5 episodes depending on how you count the double-lengths and HF is roughly the length of 1 cour total), how many of the characters I didn't care as much about compared to Deen.

But HF circumvents that by being an entirely different thing. It is technically still about the Holy Grail War, but it feels more like a "horror" movie distorted Holy Grail War. A lot of the characters have completely different roles in the story, the atmosphere is darker, and people can get murdered at the snap of a finger. Instead of someone who can be human or reasoned with like Gilgamesh, they're facing off against this shadow that just CANNOT, you know?

It was a really compelling way to avoid being the third retelling of the same old story.

Speaking of which, for better or for worse, it pretty much assumes you've seen UBW and just kinda skips over retelling the common story threads again which works for me since I've been watching Fate basically all month so I kinda rolled my eyes when they started doing it a little bit in the first movie but they come off it pretty quickly.

So how are those characters?

I liked Shirou a lot more here. He does face actual consequences for being the way he is and I really liked his dynamic with Sakura here. Unlike Deen and UBW, he didn't really do anything here that annoyed me per se.

Saber is one of those characters that has a weird, distorted role in the story. I can't say I liked her as much in this one compared to Deen but it was an intriguing take on her and it contributed to the helpless feeling of the story since Shirou didn't have his pet knight to rely on but she gets some new stuff to chew on in place of that.

For the role she has in the story, I can't say I really cared about Rin all that much. She's not a rival like in Deen and she's not a love interest like in UBW and while she DOES have her place in the story, she took a backseat compared to a surprising character for me.

Illya... was not my favorite character this route. She does get significantly more to do compared to UBW but she's another character like Saber I think is done better in Deen. We do get some nice scenes with her and Shirou but idk, she felt a lot like a plot device, especially since she gets the honorable role of shounensplaining some things that I don't know if they needed to be explained to me personally. I'll talk a bit more about this when I discuss the ending.

Shinji... I called him a sniveling jackass in this story and he sure is but that feels a bit light considering the subject matter. I guess in that sense, he's a good antagonist, but he feeds more into a character I like more than he is a character I liked.

Kotomine is actually kinda cool in this route. I didn't like him in Deen and he didn't really do much for me to have an opinion on him in UBW but he gets to play a sort of "anti-hero" role in HF which I thought was a fresh, exciting take. It's really what I wanted from Kotomine in Deen since Deen Kotomine went from 0 to 100 really quick and I liked his more natural progression in this trilogy.

We actually get a new character that matters in Zouken Matou. Similar to Shinji, he sure is a jackass. He's just kind of a less sniveling, more imposing and gross version of Shinji, he gets to play a significant part in the story and he sure is very hateable. I didn't like him but he also made me look at CGI anime bugs and thank you Zouken, you dick.

Zouken also has a Servant and he was cool for the part he played in the story but I don't really have much of an opinion on his character.

However, you may have noticed (among other characters) I skipped over one.

That's because my favorite character in this route was actually, of all people (although I guess it's not that shocking considering it was her route) Sakura. I was a little put off by the fact that she had her own route considering she was bland as lukewarm oatmeal in both Deen AND UBW, to the point where she wasn't even in UBW S2 until the very end, but the egg has been placed upon my face because yup, she kinda rules here. I feel like Saber and especially Rin didn't really have that much personal trauma going on. Saber's whole deal felt kinda tacky and Rin literally gets called out by Sakura for how little hardship she comparatively had but Sakura had her shit fucked UP. Watching her cling to the one person who ever unflinchingly treated her nicely and fought for her only for that same desire to be corrupted was really compelling to the point where she steals the whole show and becomes arguably the best character in all 3 routes. It makes you feel bad for the poor girl but then she snaps and... yup. Can't really say much else because of spoilers but great character.

Also, Rider is here. I wouldn't say she gets as big of a glow-up but she does get a good deal of screen time and time to show off her stuff so this is still her best route.

I did say, however, I had a bit of a problem with the ending. I do like a little bit of the lore they share with a certain Zoroastrian spirit and the Holy Grail, for all the Holy Grail stuff I didn't want to know, that part was cool. Kinda felt like it came out of nowhere but whatever. My bigger issue is that the third movie uses a decent amount of the film to explain the origins of the Holy Grail and maybe it's better in the VN but other than the mission Shirou needed to carry out, it didn't do much for me. The fuck is the Root?

I thought the actual ending was kind of confusing too. I had to look up what happened on Wikipedia after the fact (idk if that's a me issue or that's because I didn't ~consume~ Garden of Sinners yet but the object they found in the shop... that did not exactly come across to me as what it was) and I'm a little disappointed, it takes a little sting out of what would've been a bittersweet ending.

Overall, I think this was the best Fate/stay night route for me.

It combined the cleaner, more Hype and Aura art of Ufotable with an actually good atmosphere, it was a shocking departure from what would've likely been rote had they played it closer to Deen and UBW, Sakura (and to a lesser extent Kotomine) got the glow-up of a century, this is my kind of Fate. It's kind of darker and more psychological (at least as much as it can be given it's still Fate/stay night) but that's my jam.

It's kind of unfortunate because you kind of have to watch at the very least UBW to see this first but it's a very good movie trilogy, if nothing else, watching Deen (which I liked anyway) and UBW was worth it to see this.

The whole trilogy gets a 9/10
The first 2 movies get a 9/10
I had a bit more of an issue with this movie specifically (more "cutsceney" battles imo, origins of Holy Grail didn't land for me, issues with the ending) but it's still a solid 8/10

It sure was

I said this in the first season's review but I'm going to try to elaborate a little more on why I prefer Deen over Ufotable when it comes to the artstyle and animation.

One of my big peeves with UBW was how often it felt like they were surrounded by fog, especially during the fights. It felt more like they were fighting in Silent Hill than any normal town. Speaking of which, I'm sorry but Unlimited Blade Works world (as in the Reality Marble that the power UBW is in, not the world that the anime UBW is in) looks boring as fuck.

The fights ... just kind of feel like... a cutscene, if it makes sense? Like, it feels less like a natural extension of the story and more like a disted cutscene to show off how Cool Ufotable is and how much money they can pour into their animation.

The OP is probably the most iconic Fate OP but yeah, sorry, still not a fan. I guess it's better (or at least I it, which makes it better than UBW S1) but it's not great and certainly not better than Disillusion.

Characters:

I do have a bit more to say about Shirou now. I was fine with his whole self-sacrificing "oh, I've gotta be the champion of justice, hell or high water, rah rah rah" schtick but when facing someone who directly opposed his ideals and was like "I know what's going to happen to you, you're gonna feel really shitty and curse the path you've walked", he's just like "ok" and "fuck you" and does it anyway. It makes for a very anticlimactic resolution and ending for him.

Saber literally does not matter. Rin got to matter in Saber's route but Rin's big fat thighs smother her routemates in this route, Saber spends most of it either as a hostage, a ing Member of the Party, or facing off against a designated jobber while the others do stuff that actually matters. She does one thing (ittedly a big thing) that matters and then she just kind of peaces out. Considering how many people likely skipped or disliked FSN Deen, all the Saber fans must be from Fate/Zero or something because UBW Saber was nothing.

I said this in S1 and this is still true about Rin: "Since this IS Rin's route, she does get a lot of screentime here. I think I actually preferred her in the Fate route so far because she got to play more of a rival there. She still gets a lot of time to play rival but they also kind of have to lean into her being a love interest, especially in the last episode. And it never really clicked for me?" I guess it clicks a little bit better now but to be honest, maybe it's just because I like UBW less, but I think I still prefer Saber route/Fate route/Deen Rin.

Speaking of S1 remarks that are still true (...well, for the most part, oops), Archer! "I didn't even include a sentence about him in my Deen review because I had no thoughts on him but the one thing I will give UBW is that Archer is a much better character here. He gets to play more of the antagonistic, tweener rival here and it works really well, not to mention his dynamic with Rin is much better... I don't know about fleshed out per se, but it's certainly better written." We do get to find out what his Heroic Spirit is and I don't hate the identity but I'm a little bleh on the logic. I can't really say much without slapping a huge spoiler on it but idk, the logic felt kinda disappointing.

It's not even that Sakura's bland this season, she literally does not exist. She was in the very last episode for like a minute and does nothing else. Rin says something about "oh, Shirou, wouldn't it suck if your family had to give you away" or something to that effect/genre of conversation and it just... does not come up in this route. Idk why they even bothered because it doesn't come into play here and if it comes into play in Heaven's Feel, it feels like a flimsy connection to go "erm, see, we foreshadowed it!"

Illya just did not matter outside of being a plot point this whole story, huh. She got a "cry now" backstory and... I dunno, her being a Homunculus just doesn't feel very good. I would've rather her just genuinely be some prodigy princess. Oh, also, they fixed my complaint about the incongruity regarding Berserker's Noble Phantasm. Idk why they said that in the first season but they do show him tanking things that'd normally kill him because he has x amount of lives.

I wasn't a huge fan of Kotomine in FSN Deen but he is totally wasted in this season. World-class dumbass, at least he got to DO stuff in Deen.

I guess Shinji does get more time here. Similar to Rin, I guess he's probably better here but, like, I didn't like UBW as much so *shrugs*. I guess UBW can have one point for Shinji.

Similar to Shinji, I guess Caster is probably "objectively" better here, she certainly gets a lot more time (although to be honest, she's not even the second best antagonist in the season) but in a way, it dilutes her relationship with Kuzuki. Her not having all that much time in Deen made her relationship with Kuzuki stand out because of what we didn't see but seeing Caster mostly be this jackass antagonist means the sweet moments with Kuzuki (which they don't really increase in this show) are more diluted.

Lancer actually gets stuff to do, hooray! In Deen (and UBW S1), he barely matters and I have no opinion on him. He actually gets to do stuff this season and I dunno, he's actually kinda chill with it. Lancer and Archer are the two people I will unabashedly say that UBW did better.

As for Assassin... he's in the Deen Lancer position where I genuinely asked my Fate oomfie "okay, did HE die?". Yup... barely matters here.

I feel like Gilgamesh kind of lost some of his charm since they don't really give him much time to interact with Saber. I do like his rationale for why he's doing what he's doing (although the more they reveal about the Holy Grail, the less I like the idea of the Grail) but him being all like "oh, Saber, as KING, I want you and I'm gonna have you", idk, made him seem like a cool fuckboy and I guess he still kinda is but it's kinda lacking in that department since Saber and him don't do much together.

Command Seals continue to be worth jack diddly shit. It feels like for the majority of the story they either don't work, are outright defied, they are used on things that are absolutely not worthy of a big "I order you against your will to do this", or they are not used on things the Servants are clearly reluctant to do.

Some characters are done better, a lot aren't, I'm afraid UBW was not my cup of tea for the most part. I get why more people like this than Deen because UBW is more Hype and Aura and trades in a lot of the quieter Shirou Household Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner scenes for Epic Fights but that makes it appeal less to me.

When I give a 1 out of 10, I generally put it in one of two categories:
1. It's completely devoid of worth. There is 0 reason to seek this out unless you are a DIEHARD completionist, looking for the worst anime regardless of entertainment value, or you're a masochist. This would be something like, say, FLCL Grunge.
2. It may have SOME value (although generally speaking, not much) but it pisses me off so bad that it doesn't matter, the bad outweighs the good by too far a factor for it to get even a 2. This is more subjective but I've had this happen to ... me before, see the first half of Beastars Final Season.

I genuinely think Dual Rulers is the first to accomplish both.

I'll preface this with the fact that I am a Guilty Gear fan. Rev2 is my favorite fighting game of all time, I currently have Strive at third. I own all 4 main games, I even have fucking Dust Strikers.

So for this to be a ONE out of 10, I didn't even think that'd be possible. Hell, my favorite Guilty Gear character was guaranteed to be in the show and I was like "well, even if the show sucks ass (it does), at least Elphelt's in it".

I'll get to that in a second but let's talk a bit about the production.

It looks like crap.

Even when it's generally functioning well, it looks worse than the game it's based on and worse than most modern anime you can find.

But sometimes?

My God, pour one out for Ramlethal fans, she gets one opportunity to shine in the series and it looks worse than Uzumaki and Blue Lock S2 combined.

I think Episode 8 (conveniently the very last episode) is the only time I was ever amazed by any visuals they did and at that point, I was so over the series, it didn't even matter. And even then, it's less demanding than the normal scenes of the show, it's just a cool visual.

The sound, for such a music fan's fighting game, is kind of forgettable? For better or for worse, there aren't a bunch of NAOKI Strivecore songs like the character themes, the only really notable one is the OP which has grown on me since I first heard it ittedly. The ED is forgettable ED #5409. The OST is nothing to write home about.

How is the writing?

Before I get into the characters, I wanna talk about the narrator.

They explain everything in LABORIOUS detail. I'm pretty sure there's one episode where it's explained that since Sin was born after the Crusades, he wouldn't understand the impact of it three times in that almost exact verbiage.

Not to mention any character who matters at all gets a title card explaining everything about them like you're sitting next to a GG superfan and they pause the show to loredump you.

Shut the fuck up and SHOW US who these characters are.

The characters aren't much better.

Needless to say, if they aren't on the poster, they're a cameo at best. I think Leo Whitefang and Axl Low are the only ones who that doesn't apply to (outside of NPCs who aren't playable like Vernon or Nerville) and their roles are generously considered not a cameo tbh.

Speaking of which, before we talk about the main characters, let's talk about the majority of the characters on the poster.

A lot of these feel like characters there just to pop Guilty Gear fans because they're pretty much bit-timers or characters there to fill the runtime with fights against Unika or cannon fodder enemies.

Johnny, Baiken, Elphelt, Ramlethal, even Dizzy and fucking KY KISKE, THE DEUTERAGONIST OF THE ENTIRE SERIES get very little to do.

For a couple as crucial to the plot and main characters as Dizzy and Ky, they spend Episodes 2-7 sitting in Illyria Castle.

Johnny's written basically as "I LIKE WOMEN I LIKE WOMEN I LIKE WOMEN", he genuinely has more defining character traits in his title card introduction than the rest of his screentime

You could not make me a single thing Baiken contributed to the story other than helping during fight scenes and just kinda standing there, throwing out a couple lines when she's needed.

Elphelt and Ramlethal are put on guard in Illyria Castle aka they do jack shit. Elphelt gets one scene on her own to shine but it just makes her look like a dumbass dweeb (which... I mean Elphelt was never very book smart, we love our 0 IQ wannabe bride) and she vanishes until she's needed for fight scenes at the end. As mentioned above, Ramlethal genuinely might as well not even be in the story. You could write the dead corpse of Bedman in the story and he'd be just as useful.

I genuinely do not if we ever see Leo Whitefang in the flesh and blood, he's just... on council with the President the entire story.

Axl's entire contribution to the plot is a ing remark about the future.

I could remark about how cynical it is that there are precisely 2 characters from each DLC season (Jack-O and Baiken for S1, Sin and Bridget for S2, Elphelt and Johnny for S3, and Dizzy and Unika for S4) as if they're put in there to plug DLC in case they somehow by some grace of God convince someone to buy Strive off the back of this travesty, but that's just a conspiracy theory tbh

I think there are, like, 5 characters who actually matter.

Bridget genuinely does more to help Unika than any character in the story. If you're someone who has been shipping Unika and Bridget since they had that little T cross-section cut-in or whatever in the opening movie, you might be the only people who'd enjoy this show and even then, there's probably already a "Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers but only the Bridget moments" and you'd be better off watching that. And in exchange, she doesn't even get to fight all that much, probably because animating her doing yo-yo shit wasn't in the budget.

Sol Badguy at least gets to do something unlike Ky but he's just Sin's mentor, the "old guy". He does actually matter but if you had hopes of seeing a faithful Guilty Gear anime where Sol gets to shine:
1. Why, this was clearly Sin's anime
2. You don't get that

Nerville Hammer is a dog-ass villain. I'm not even going to mark this for spoilers because I mean just look at him. It'd be more of a spoiler if he wasn't a villain. He starts out as just A Racist against Gears which sure, fine, whatever, but then the more and more we learn about him, he just kind of flops. I don't really understand his plan? He just transforms into "muahahahaha I'm going to take over EVERYTHING and kill both humans and Gears" and like motherfucker, what do you plan to rule over? Trees? Zebras? He turns into such a cartoonishly overkill villain that he loses all his credibility and become exhausting, not to mention a significant downgrade in animation quality.

Quite frankly, the biggest reason I saw this at all was, as a Strive fan, Unika was coming to Strive, so I had to know what her deal was. And it does not succeed in endearing her to me. For the majority of the story, she comes off as either a racist or a dumbass puppet and whatever attempts to sympathize her to me don't work. Apparently all it takes is naked Bridget and you go from "all Gears must die" to "you know, maybe my father is a jackass". Her connection to Sin never feels real and, as mentioned above, it feels more like Bridget saves Unika than Sin does. I saw a meme during the show's runtime that Unika felt like a Guilty Gear OC that's given a bunch of Cool Traits to make her seem Cool, like if you wrote your JJK OC as Hitomi Gojou who is Gojou's favorite younger sister and Megumi Fushiguro's lover and goes shopping with Nobara Kugisaki on the weekends and that's genuinely what Unika feels like to me.

If she was meant to be some sort of new age deuteragonist, it doesn't work. Hell, even as a "normal" member of the cast, I would've been MORE excited to play as her in Strive if Dual Rulers never existed.

Speaking of new age replacements, I wanna go on a bit of a tangent about "new" protagonists in fighting games.

I feel like these are generally misguided. It's worked occasionally (see: Jin Kazama, Rock Howard [although considering it took like 25 years after his first game to get a sequel and that game seems to have drastically underperformed, one questions if even he works]) but a lot of the time, it at best makes a successful side character (K', Ash Crimson, Alex from Street Fighter) and at worst creates complete flops (Abel from Street Fighter, Pyrrha and Patroklos from SoulCalibur 5, the Kombat Kids from Mortal Kombat X).

Why do I bring this up?

I feel like this, other than to introduce Unika, was supposed to be a way to be Sin Kiske's coming out party as the new Guilty Gear protagonist and it does not work.

I like Sin, generally speaking. He's fine, has an enjoyable enough gameplay style, he works as a side character in the cast of wacky characters.

As the protagonist, he's kind of insufferable.

He's a big dumbass and wants Everyone To Get Along but he fails to have a compelling reason to be the protagonist. As I've said a couple times, he doesn't really get to do much to help out Unika, he has to be given a special powerup to be anything more than "guy with a flag who happens to be a nepo baby" and even then, he fucks up and Sol has to bail him out (in a very bullshit way, mind you). Sin's quite literally only the protagonist because of who his parents are, which doesn't make him endearing at all. He's a dumbass, overly idealistic, and naive. It's fine for him to be those traits when he's A Character in the cast. It gets increasingly Not Fine when he's THE PROTAGONIST.

ArcSys wants Hiroshi Tanahashi but all they got was Shota Umino.

It's just not a good show.

It doesn't attract people who haven't played Guilty Gear because, despite trying their hardest to explain what's necessary (and a lot that's not), there's no reason for non-GG fans to see this. It's another chapter in the story, not the start or even a particularly popular part.

It fails to establish Sin Kiske as a worthy successor to Sol Badguy.

It fails to make Unika a very compelling character.

It doesn't really do much to make any of the other characters look good.

It doesn't look good or have exciting fight scenes, which seems weird for an anime about a FIGHTING GAME.

I've only really seen UnikaxBridget stuff come out of this and to me, that seems like a fitting condemnation in of itself.

Give this one a skip.

1 step forward, 2 steps back compared to the Studio Deen Fate anime imo

The art is much more... technologically advanced? This show came out a little under a decade after FSN Deen and it does show, although for better or for worse, this is a Ufotable anime.

In my opinion, it's for the worse. This show has the sort of atmosphere that feels less like a lived-in anime and more "look at all the budget we can pour into this anime!"

The fight scenes are the biggest example. I don't want to say it's "overanimated" per se but there's a certain, overly flashy style of fights Ufotable ... has and going out of your way to show off how Fucking Cool your fights are takes me out a little because it seems like you're more concerned with flashy hype Twitter clips than telling the story, even if the story does get told along the way. Idk if this is making sense but I thought the new artstyle was inferior and the fights were a bit too overly flashy budgetslop for my tastes.

Lancer's Noble Phantasm in particular was absolute comedy.

The OP and ED were mid but the OST was pretty good. We do get a rendition of This Illusion at the end of the season but this one was kinda trash. The Deen version was one of my favorite OPs in anime, so it was a high bar and I don't think it landed. LiSA's kind of hit or miss for me, I like some of her songs (Crossing Field, Gurenge, Homura), some lesser so (Oath Sign, her Solo Leveling OP) and I think this song was a miss. The instrumentation is much harsher and Epic/Cinematic and I prefer the vocalist from the Deen version.

How are the characters this time?

You only get the first half, so it's not really fair to compare it to a full season but when did I ever say I fight fair

Shirou is... whatever. He was more interesting in FSN Deen, he just kind of slides into the standard "MC I don't really think much of" groove here.

Saber has no personality here for the most part. Any connection I had to her in Deen was gone here, she's got her little kuudere "chivalrous knight" thing going on but that's all she has, since this isn't her route anymore, they don't really do much with her outside of her status of being Really Strong.

Since this IS Rin's route, she does get a lot of screentime here. I think I actually preferred her in the Fate route so far because she got to play more of a rival there. She still gets a lot of time to play rival but they also kind of have to lean into her being a love interest, especially in the last episode. And it never really clicked for me?

Speaking of love interests, Archer! I didn't even include a sentence about him in my Deen review because I had no thoughts on him but the one thing I will give UBW is that Archer is a much better character here. He gets to play more of the antagonistic, tweener rival here and it works really well, not to mention his dynamic with Rin is much better... I don't know about fleshed out per se, but it's certainly better written. ShirouxArcher

Sakura's still bland and does jack shit in this season but that was true in Deen too so whatever.

Illya was my favorite character in Deen and she doesn't get much to do here. She's still in her bratty villain phase and she does get an episode or two but for the most part, she's entirely gone and just kind of thought of as "the big wall we have to clear since Berserker's so powerful". One thing that did confuse me is it seems that UBW changed his Noble Phantasm? I was under the impression that Berserker had a certain amount of lives and once you depleted them, he'd die, but it said his NP here was, like, he can restore himself once every 3 days. Concerning.

Shinji doesn't get nearly as much time to be a sniveling jackass, although that may change in S2 so I won't touch much on it here.

What I WILL touch on is how they wasted Rider.

I don't think Rider was this great, well-written piece of fiction in the Deen anime but at least she was there? UBW barely does anything with her and she's mostly a stepping stone for a piece later in the plot.

In turn, we get more Caster!

I like Caster as the main antagonist of the season. I will say she doesn't get much time to be with [I guess this is a spoiler, not that I didn't spoil it in the Deen review], which harms my favorite part of Caster, but we do get a lot of time to actually see her be an antagonist, which is great.

...Assassin's just kinda there. Same for Lancer.

To this show's credit, we do somewhat get to see Gilgamesh up and around in the early parts of the show, so it feels like less of an asspull that he's here, but it kind of spoils who I presume will end up being the main villain of the show and he doesn't actually do anything, he's just kinda there ~menacingly~.

It does kind of feel like they spoil a few things just kinda casually. In the Prologue (btw, didn't appreciate 3 double-length episodes), instead of us seeing Saber for the first time when Shirou summons her, we just kinda see her pop in through Rin's eyes. Kiritsugu and Shirou's relationship too.

The first, like, 5 episodes (and Prologue) are just kind of retreading the Fate route, which I guess kinda makes sense but it also makes for a tedious start if you've already seen the Deen anime.

I also had an issue with how loosely they throw around Command Seals this time around. Maybe it's just me feeling like it should be a more formal request or something but they'll just go "stop, no!" and the Command Seal disappears but at other times, they boss around Saber and Archer with no repercussions. I feel like there should be more pushback or, like, a more formal "I order you to do this!" and their arm glows or something but it felt kinda loose here.

I suppose this is an interesting take on FSN, definitely helps a couple characters like Archer and Caster but so far, I'm not feeling it as much.

There's something to be said about it only being the first half so maybe I'll have egg on my face when I watch S2 but yeah

My answer for "should you watch this or not" can be answered in one question:

Are you interested in seeing what AI can do to make an anime, whether that be out of genuine AI bro desire or morbid curiosity

If the answer is yes, then it's worth seeing as a technological feat

If the answer is no, there's absolutely no reason to watch it because it sucks as everything but a sheer "wow, they sure made a whole anime episode with mostly AI, huh" feat of technology

*note: while I put it in Not Recommended for the quality of the anime, it's also worth saying I am not ... an AI bro and find the concept of this anime even existing kinda disappointing*

It only makes sense to start with the AI.

How does it look?

Like crap.

It looks like crap.

I guess it was watchable enough to finish it, but as someone who will ride or die with Flowers of Evil's rotoscoping, this show is butt ugly and fresh off of watching it, it kind of hurt my eyes.

I am infinitely grateful that this was a 1 episode TV special and not a movie or a full cour series like I thought it'd be when I first heard about it.

You can see things adjusting in real time but idk man, it just doesn't look good, I don't know what to tell you. There's a scene where Hinana (the red-haired one) is chasing a cat and something about it just seemed uncanny valley to me with the backgrounds and stuff.

Speaking of Hinana, she turns around back and forth to look at 2 people and you can see her ears and hair adjusting. Ditto for the grass in one of their TikTok dances. Them starting recording and their heads are at the bottom of the phone screen was a really bad shot for me personally.

There are some nice, inspired visuals in the second half (at least I hope a human had input in that and AI didn't decide to include those things, that'd suck) but you're still looking at this ugly anime.

I actually liked the soundtrack. It was kind of whimsical, which fit the latter half of the anime.

The story and characters, as expected of a 23-minute tech demo, are an absolute nothingburger.

It features pie in the sky, bubbly Hinana (who, for what it's worth, has a design that would be ugly even in a traditionally animated anime imo) and the more grounded Himari (the white-haired one who looks fine if generic) and they wanna get viral (well, mostly Hinana).

Yup.

It sure is.

They eventually get pulled into a wacky, whimsical world while trying to go viral but the ending is just kinda unsatisfying. The twins seem to fixate on getting a comment from this "Justin" guy and am I missing something? I it, I may not be as hip with the TikTok as the youths but who the fuck is Justin? We never really get a sight of him. In a better anime, we'd see something like a highlight reel of Justin's best TikToks if he's supposed to be a content creator. If he's their crush from school or something, we'd meet him. Here? The best clue we get is a TikTok comment from a profile with a blank PFP.

The writing is just really weird too.

Hinana has this habit (well, she does it twice, but she does it twice in a 23-minute episode and it's as much of a personality quirk as we get in this show, better than Himari who gets nothing of the sort) of eating weeds and then spitting them out and going "bleh, that's bitter!"

At least she's touching grass, but huh?

Even the TikToks they film after the dance are just... weird.

Not only that, but they sandwich what looks like it'd be the OP in a normal show and then the ED with, like, a 2 minute break in between the two.

They sometimes try to get funky fresh smart with it. For example, Hinana goes on a tangent about how she tricked the world into thinking she'd get cola and instead got some red bean drink or something and they talk about determinism and free will and causality. That sounds funny but it was just kind of annoying. Not to mention, and maybe this is what Himari was saying, but you were probably in the red bean timeline the whole time in that case.

Yeah, this show isn't good.

I kinda doubt they even really cared if the quality of the show was all that good, it seems more like a vehicle for the AI art.

As said above, the AI art isn't very good but it is technically impressive that they could make even this in a relatively short amount of time.

If you are willing to watch a show whose AI art is the equivalent of shitty early-stages CGI (like ReBoot or something) and with no redeeming qualities outside of the technical achievement, it is a fascinating piece of work.

If you're indifferent to watching a glorified tech demo or are actively against AI art and will not consume it in any way, shape, or form, even out of morbid curiosity, this isn't worth your time and won't convince you/change your mind.

A decent battle royale but every single time it switched antagonists, it got worse and worse.

I have not read the VN nor have I seen the Ufotable adaptations, so I have no real concept of the accuracy of this to the Fate route, nor how much they cut. I've heard it cribbed from both UBW and HF and for what it's worth, especially for Heaven's Feel, you can kinda tell.

I thought the art did a satisfactory job of what it needed to depict. It was not super Hype and Aura but it worked. The first OP is a stone cold bop although the second one ... is kinda generic anime slop. The ED stays the same throughout the whole show so I kinda wish they did the same thing with the OP.

How are the characters?

I go back and forth on Shirou. I generally enjoy him but sometimes, he really rubs me the wrong way. They eventually wind back to the correct choice in the end but how he gets there annoys me. He has this Big Trauma involving an event 10 years ago and how he ends up confronting that trauma is not very good. After seeing it, I literally said "fuck off, I HOPE [antagonist] wins". He's got this self-sacrifice complex and it's kinda weird when you literally have an Epic Hero next to you who was summoned solely to fight, but I mean at least he doesn't just bitch out and let his waifu fight for him like Mirai Nikki so props to him.

Speaking of which, Saber... I was kinda frustrated with how much she fixated on going back and redoing the king selection. I never really felt that she messed up all that bad with her kingdom and as such, it was kind of annoying how often she hemmed and hawed over it. As a character, she was fine. She's kind of a kuudere with a bit more emotion but to be honest, I wasn't really in love with ShirouxSaber, Rin, or Sakura.

That being said, Rin's probably my favorite of the three heroines. She gets a lot of time to be the typical "battle shounen rival deuteragonist" of the show, which made me like her a lot more. Didn't get much romantic chemistry between her and Shirou but I did like her dynamic with him looking at it like a hero and his rival. Probably the only one of Shirou and his three heroines I have no real issue with.

Sakura was aggressively bland, your typical Yamato Nadeshiko. She doesn't really get much to do outside of the Emiya household dinners (which I actually appreciated how many they had, I'm glad it wasn't all Hype and Aura action, I'm glad they slowed down a little to have character moments) until late game and even then, it was a quick plot point to be done and dusted within a couple episodes (put a pin in this because I'll talk about this later). And after that, she just vanishes again. I know she gets her own route but she does fuck all in this one.

Also, Taiga. I don't really have anywhere else to organically put her so here you go. I thought she was funny and I'd watch hijinx at the Emiya household at the dinner table.

The next Master I want to talk about is Illya. She's probably my favorite character. I like her design, there's something about silver hair and red eyes that makes a character look baller. She's also got a lot to do in this route, I liked her personality and how she interacts with Shirou throughout the series. I think they just kinda throw a plot point involving her in your face at the end and that was kinda rushed but the bratty girl with her giant Servant, very nice, very good archetype.

How are the villains?

Our first real antagonist is Shinji and at first, I was like "wow, what a jackass" but I think I've irony-gassed him up to the point where he's one of my favorite characters. He's just kind of a sniveling little shitheel, I don't think he'd work as the main antagonist but for the role he had, I thought he carried it out really well. Rider introduced some interesting friction between Epic Heroes and other types of Servants but I wasn't satisfied by how little they touched on that aspect, which seems to be a running theme.

Next is, in my opinion, the antagonist group they should've stuck with, because splitting it underbaked the actual main antagonists and made the middle group look like a bunch of punks.

I liked Caster and Assassin working together to summon the Holy Grail. It was kinda genius and I liked Caster and her Master for how little we got to see of them. They were kinda cute tbh, I ship them more than I do Shirou with anyone. Caster would've been a perfect successor to Rider's Epic Hero inferiority complex and they don't do much with Caster either. I thought Caster/her Master would've been a cool mirror of sorts to Shirou and Saber, especially since her Master's such a badass that he can go toe to toe with Servants which Masters normally cannot do. It also does tap into some foreshadowing that I honestly forgot about until they mention it again, that was really well done.

...Assassin was cool too, I liked what he was for what he was.

Lancer does get some cool moments in the end and redeems himself as a character (otherwise he would've just been a waste of a spot tbh) but he takes a hike for a MASSIVE portion of the story. He ends up justifying why but I genuinely asked my Fate fan oomfie "did he just die offscreen or something while I wasn't looking?"

However, the final, true, main antagonists just kinda... appear.

The seventh Master, in particular, Aizens himself by going "yeah, every single bad thing that ever happened to you? It was me!" without realizing that Aizen worked because Aizen revealed himself to be the baddie a little under halfway of the time of the storyline he had. Aizen had a lot of time to be a jackass that you wanted to see get his just desserts.

Seventh Master? Not so much.

His cohort is more entertaining, at least, but at that point, it's too little, too late.

They spend so much time in the first half that by the time they have to deal with the other Masters, they force themselves into sort of a tight squeeze.

I did enjoy this series, lots of cool characters, a gripping plot, good humor, I just wish they had more time to flesh things out.

They spend so much time in the "Shinji Arc" that while it makes SHINJI a solid character, the other antagonists end up being half-baked. They also just absolutely SMACK what I presume is something from Sakura's route into this route so she has something to do in the back half but it both doesn't fit and doesn't end up mattering. I was kinda frustrated with Shirou and Saber's developments.

A solid anime, not as bad as I expected from what I heard but not anything spectacular.

My score does seem a little underwhelming but I did enjoy this show.

I just had a couple of big problems with it.

I think it looks pretty good for 2004. Watanabe is a good director and a lot of the action scenes are well shot. There's one on a boat near the end that I really liked for how it depicted the tight, claustrophobic space Mugen and... uh... well, quite frankly, I don't know the other guy's name... anyway, Mugen and Other Guy were fighting in.

As it is known for, the hip hop music and style was pretty good. I'm pretty polarized on Battlecry which, as ... the OP, is the defining song from this show. I thought it sucked ASS when I first heard it out of context. After putting it on loop and submerging myself into it, I do like the song... I still don't really like it in the OP form though. Especially around the time you see Fuu's derp face and some off-note piano keys. But yeah, I thought the hip hop music added a lot to the show, definitely gave it some more style compared to if it was using "traditional Japanese music" (speaking of which, though, any time someone was playing a biwa/shamisen and singing, it low-key kinda sucked, idk if that's SamCham's fault or I just don't have the ear for that type of thing, but yup...)

It's kind of a "protags wander around and fuck around" show, so pretty much every character that isn't Mugen, Jin, or Fuu only matter for a couple episodes, for better or for worse.

When they circle back around to ThE gHoStS oF tHeIr PaSt, it kind of falls flat because the only one that really has any pre-established connection to them is Fuu and... I have my reservations about how they played the sunflower samurai storyline. But Jin and Mugen's "ghosts" were just kinda slapdashed into past events of theirs, Mugen especially.

Speaking of the 3 protagonists, how are they?

I enjoyed them, for the most part.

Jin's my kinda guy, straightlaced, glasses-wearing, more "traditional" fighter, that's one of my favorite archetypes for male characters. It's a nice counterpart for Mugen's more roughneck... not traditional style and I was intrigued to see their bromance grow.

Fuu... I guess this is a good time to bring up one of my biggest critiques against the show.

It's not Literally Every Single Woman in the show but there are so many women in this show who are either forced into prostitution, forced to marry people, almost sexually assaulted (in one case, by Mugen), etc, etc.

I noticed it very early on when Fuu got, in back to back episodes, put in a brothel and then human trafficked, but it's almost comical how often women are just treated as sex objects in this show.

There's One female character I liked and it's not even Fuu (speaking of which, I wish Sara was part of the cast for a longer period of time).

Fuu's just kind of a brat and going "erm, why are you guys fucking around, don't you OUR BET? Don't you DA SUNFLOWER SAMURAI?", meanwhile, she's getting kidnapped for the 17th time

Anytime Mugen or Jin go with a woman or to a brothel, she's all like "hmph! Why would they do that when they have ME?"

>Fuu is 15

Girl, you're not rolling with Diddy and Drake

Speaking of which, I kind of assumed Fuu was, like, 20. I don't understand why they're all so young. Forget Fuu, what do you MEAN Mugen and Jin are 20? TWENTY? These bozos?

Anyway, yeah, it kinda threw me off how they treated women in this show. Didn't like it.

My other critique is with the ending.

Forget the fact that they drop a plot bomb on us and then go "oh yeah, have this shitty-ass NyQuil episode about zombies and an ittedly very fun and very good episode about baseball first", as mentioned above, the "ghosts of their past" don't feel very important because it's such an episodic show.

When Mugen and Jin Finish Their Story, it doesn't feel that big of a deal? Mugen especially, bro should NOT give a singular fuck about this.

Quite frankly, the end of Mugen's battle is ridiculous in its own way but I can't really divulge into more without spoiling it.

Once the sunflower samurai's identity is revealed, it just feels like a very weird "mystery". Why couldn't Fuu have just said that upfront? She knew who he was. She didn't exactly treat it like a big mystery that had to be kept under wraps when she told Mugen and Jin. Was it because it sounded cool? Was it to try and build a false sense of hype when the sunflower samurai's identity was revealed? Why did you do this?

The ending after the dust has settled is underwhelming too. They kind of treat each other like they just finished a group project in high school after randomly being assigned to each other. It's not like I expected a poly wedding ending but it just kinda... ends.

It seems weirdly, acutely aware of how distant the three are from each other despite bonding over the course of the show and idk if that was supposed to be the point but yeah

I know this review's been very negative for a "Recommended" review but I did enjoy it fine enough.

A lot of the episodes are just these characters being thrown into wacky scenarios that usually end in some brawl and that is a good time. I would recommend watching this show. I liked the characters and I liked watching them get into trouble. It's very stylish and holds up to this day.

It's just... damn, do I have some grievances with this show.