I’m just going to go ahead and spoil all of Wizard Barristers for you on the off chance that I can spare you from watching it: Sudou Cecil was killed and brought back to life with forbidden magic in order to summon Lucifer who ends up as the chronically chirpy Moyo; Makusu (judge) is, like his son Shimizu (police officer), hiding his identity as a wizard but ends up killing him and is the one trying to summon the Lord of Darkness. There should now be no reason for you to investigate the series further because combined with screenshots, you’re saving time and oxygen and getting a better experience than watching it.
Characters burst into the courtroom like it’s a celebrity wedding that must be stopped
It’s difficult to fully appreciate how terrible Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil is without slipping into hyperbole and making it sound “so bad it’s good”. Make no mistake, this is just bad. To understand disappointment is to follow Yasuomi Umetsu’s directing career because although his character designs are bold, colourful and unique, his directing leaves a trail of disenchantment. It started so well with Kite if you ignore the rape (statutory or otherwise), then got freaky with Mezzo Forte and the lamentable Mezzo DSA, lackluster with Kite Liberator and topped off by Galilei Donna and now Wizard Barristers. Why people keep giving him directing positions is still a mystery.
A review of the first Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya anime series
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya. Fate: okay, keeping with the Type-Moon Fate/* series naming scheme. Kaleid: kaleidoscope? Liner: hang on, what am I lining? Prisma: prism? plasma? Illya: of the von Einzberns, right.
I’d like to say that the individual words make sense on their own but “kaleid” and “prisma” only sound like they should be words; so all together the series title is just nonsense. It joins legions of other magical girl series (I’m looking at you here Nanoha) with silly titles though and may as well be called Fate/something or other: we got bored of the Holy Grail war. With all of the remakes and prequels and other Fate/* paraphernalia rolling around, turning the tragicly precocious child Illya von Einzbern into a magical girl certainly wasn’t the most obvious of routes to take.
the old standbys of friendship, teamwork and questioning why you fight
It’s within Type-Moon’s remit though when you consider the very silly Carnival Phantasm OVAs, but as to whether Prisma Illya contains the same amount of in-jokes and sight gags - I’m not really the right person to ask. I’m also not the foremost expert on magical girl shows in general (despite early and prolonged exposure to Sailor Moon, Utena et. al.) so like with Sakura Trick, I can’t authoritatively proclaim its effect on its genre. Regardless, Illya’s transformation into a magical girl is at least unique and pleasantly expedited, with her partner in cosplay joining her within a few episodes.
A review of the three Puella Magi Madoka Magica films
Six hours. That’s how long all three Puella Magi Madoka Magica movies run for, eclipsing the series run time by over an hour. You could just playlist all the series’ episodes and still have runtime spare to put up screens full of text describing what Gen Urobuchi ate for dinner when he was writing the series. A series that accumulated so much credit with so many fans that such a production would probably still be enough to line studio SHAFT’s pockets for years to come.
forsaking all normal laws, forcibly rewriting the universe and wreathing herself in hellfire
The backlash of course would be immense and it’s perhaps of a good thing that the three movies don’t do this lest we never hear the end of such entitled scorn. Of course when I say three movies, in reality it’s the first two movies which do this and it’s left to the third one to justify the movie franchise’s existence. I was not the greatest of Madoka’s fans when originally watching it as it aired; certainly there is a lot going on in terms of theme, pathos and direction and the pedigree behind it is obvious to see, however it was fundamentally a magical girl show regardless of its subversions or contrary tonal juxtapositions. That’s not a denigration of the genre as a whole, just a matter of taste and it not being to mine.
A review of seasons 1 and 2 of the Silver Spoon anime
For a lot of anime I have a hard time remembering what any of the characters are called once the series has wrapped up; I’m not especially bad with names, most characters just don’t make enough of an impression for me to recall their names. And really, that’s just a polite way of saying that for most characters in anime series, I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire. That definitely hasn’t been the case for Silver Spoon (Gin no Saji) because apart from the horse, everyone’s names I find pleasingly easy to recall.
it joins Moyashimon in the niche “off-beat but brilliant” category of farming-based series
It’s a perfect indication of the gift that Hiromu Arakawa has for crafting characters that, regardless of their circumstances, feel like people more than just archetypes. She may have more experience with farming and agriculture given her being raised on a dairy farm in Hokkaido than alchemists and homunculi but Silver Spoon still has a sparkling sense of personality that renders it such a rare and enjoyable series. Spanning two separate seasons and only twenty two episodes and covering just two terms of Hachiken’s time at an agricultural high school, it’s startling how trepidatious I was when coming to the last episode; not because the series was building towards a climax, but because once I had finished it, the series would no longer be a regular fixture.
There are innumerable possible classifications for anime series. There are ones that are unique and one-of-a-kind, ones that could never be bettered or impersonated. There are ones that are distinctive, flourishing because of their individuality. There are genre pieces that may not stand out on topic but do by embodying the best of their genre. There are derivative series that cherry pick the tropes du-jour and throw them together in the often futile hope of producing a hit. Then there’s D-Frag. A series so staunchly bereft of personality, so picked over by committee and with all its rough edges sanded down that it’s difficult to lump any kind of praise upon it beyond “it’s not terrible”.
at its best when it goes completely off the reservation
Not great, but not terrible. A pleasant mediocre. It goes laser like for the apathetic part of the brain that isn’t particularly engaged with any of the characters or events, but isn’t offended enough to discontinue watching. Its a school club love story with a light comedy scaffold with an all-too familiar one guy - multiple girls setup. The protagonist, spikey haired delinquent and chronic screamer Kenji, has been coerced into joining the “Game Development Club” in order to save it from forced disbandment; cue hijinks.
