Anime Reviews (April 2022)

I've caught up to a few anime recently, so I wanted to write some brief notes about each of them while things were still fresh in my mind.

Jujutsu Kaisen, Fall 2020: "This reminds me of Bleach in the best way."

Probably one of the biggest shounen action anime right now, following the popularity of My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen is a series I honestly wasn't too interested in when I first heard about it. After watching it, I agree that it's a big mish-mash of common themes from other shounen anime. I think it's by all means a good anime, but it's not deeply original, which... after seeing the millionth isekai series come out this season, we know anime doesn't have to be. Anime can be good even if it's not innovative or revolutionary, and I think Jujutsu Kaisen really fits that bill. It takes these common shounen action themes and does them really well.

One thing I will say that really set apart Jujutsu Kaisen from other anime (especially Demon Slayer, Bleach, and Naruto), is that I think it writes women characters particularly well. Without giving too much away, there's incredible depth to characters like Maki, while characters like Nobara are able to be out of their mind bonkers in fights in a way that feels honest to her character, without making any of them Mary Sues. They're not inexplicably strong, and they have their own strengths and weaknesses and motivations, and they go off in the series and have their own glorious moments in battle that aren't cut short by the men of the series needing to save them. A comment I deeply agreed with on the Crunchyroll site: "Nobara is all the things that Kishimoto's Sakura failed to be." All in all, since I usually don't like shounen action anime, I'm not that into JJK, but I do think this is a very well written show (and much better than Demon Slayer!), and I highly recommend it for anyone who does like shounen action anime. The show has a noticeably high production value, the animation and art is great, and the fighting sequences are incredible. 8/10

My Dress-Up Darling, Winter 2022: "All the heartwarming moments about cosplay are overshadowed by the constant fanservice and unbelievable manic pixie dream girl tropes."

I don't really know where to start with this review, and I'm not sure how to talk about this show without making a lot of people angry. In short, I think there are a lot of problems with this show, and I think a lot of people were misled into thinking it would be a feel-good slice-of-life anime about cosplaying and breaking gender roles. People who expected that going into the show were likely very much let down. By all means, I think this show should be classified as an ecchi + romance, because there really is a plot centered on the growing relationship of the main two characters. One comment I saw that really stuck out to me halfway through the season was, "I really wish they showed more detail on how to sew this particular outfit, because it's tricky and I really liked how they showed him making the cosplay in earlier episodes," and it makes me sad, because I do think a lot of people came in wanting to see an anime about cosplay, but what they got was far from it. The manga really continues to cut out more and more of the details of the cosplaying process, and a lot of the show is really just centered on giving viewers Marin fanservice. Her character, of course, is one of the biggest offenders, with her being a completely unbelievable manic pixie dream girl... and yet, a lot of people don't seem to mind. I don't know. I think I'm just at the point in my life and anime watching journey that this doesn't really appeal to me, and if anything it just sullies my anime watching experience. Not to even mention all the discourse about race that comes up towards the end of the season. Having been adjacent to the cosplay community for years, I do think the show gets some aspects of cosplay really accurately, and I do think the show clearly has some great art. It's just... the fanservice is too uncomfortable for me. I would not recommend this show, unless you're into "best girl" discourse and want lots of ecchi and fanservice. 7/10

Jujutsu Kaisen 0, March 2022 (US): "I really liked this movie, and maybe even more than the actual JJK series."

I have a whole spiel about JJK0, but first, an admission: I watched JJK0 before watching JJK, and I actually think this was the right choice. While JJK0 is described as a prequel to JJK, I think this gives a similar connotation as what we mean when we talk about the Star Wars prequels or Fate/Zero – that this content chronologically comes before the main story, but was created afterwards, with references to the original content. But that's not the case here with JJK0. JJK0 was originally published as Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School in 2017, and it was because of the popularity of this series that we were able to get Jujutsu Kaisen in 2018. So really, JJK0 is the original, and JJK is the sequel series. For that reason, I think it does make sense to start with JJK0 first, not only because it comes first within the world of JJK, but because it was written first as well. It covers just about all of what you need to know about the JJK world, and you don't really need to watch JJK to understand what's happening in JJK0. You'll see lots of characters that you'll learn more about in JJK, and there are brief moments that do make more sense (as sort of inside jokes) after you've seen JJK, but for the most part, JJK0 is able to be experienced as a standalone film.

What's also interesting is that JJK0 follows a different protagonist than that of JJK (which makes this a lot easier to start with). And I agree with a few reviewers – the protagonist of JJK0 is in my opinion more interesting than the one in JJK. He has a deeper backstory, richer motivations, and personality-wise is a bit more complex. A lot of what made JJK0 so good is the conflict and growth of the protagonist (who is referenced in JJK a few times, except you wouldn't know who he is until you've seen JJK0, which is another reason I think seeing JJK0 first makes sense). I'd honestly love to see more content with the protagonist of JJK0. Otherwise, the music selection, dialogue, art, and animation of the film were spectacular, and I'd easily recommend it just on the strength of those alone. The pacing was a bit rough towards the end, since we're trying to condense a year of training into a single film, so it did feel like the main character's growth was a little bit sudden. But at about 1 hour 45 minutes in length, I've got no complaints about the decision to cut some of that content down a bit. Highly recommend. 9/10

Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, Spring 2022 (Episode 1): "An interesting premise, but ultimately the source material and the effort to adapt it fall a bit short."

After seeing the trailer for this new anime, I have to say, I was pretty intrigued by it. The characters looked interesting, and I welcomed the fact that we're finally getting an anime where the boyfriend is a bottom and gets pegged by his girlfriend. Her character design screams "they're really trying to make her best girl of this season," and that made me wonder if this show would get a lot of interest this season. I went to go check out the manga to see what the story was like (to see how interesting it was, how well written the characters are, and if it was a wholesome romance anime), but what I found was a little surprising. The chapters for the manga are only about four pages long each – these are mostly just shorts with running gags, not a full fleshed-out story. All the chapters follow the gag of "My girlfriend is cute, but sometimes she's not" with it usually ending without actually going into the climax or action of the plot. So I was really interested (and a bit worried) about how they'd adapt it into an anime. Would they add filler material that's not in the manga to string everything together?

And indeed, that's what they did. And it kind of works, but it also kind of doesn't. The first episode just wasn't that interesting to me, and to be honest the characters felt a little bit boring as well. Shikimori's character design is interesting, but the character personalities themselves didn't really feel that dynamic, and the dialogue was pretty average throughout the episode. I had high hopes for the series based on the trailer, but unfortunately the actual show fell short. I'll keep watching to see how it goes, but I have a feeling that it might go the way of Yesterday wo Utatte, with some interesting elements, but ultimately an inability to captivate the audience. 7/10

Spy x Family, Spring 2022 (Episode 1): "This may very well be the best anime of the year."

There's no way I can write a review of the first episode that does the show justice. It is easily some of the best anime content I've seen in a while. You ever watch a show, and you're just like, "Oh damn, this is good"? That's Spy x Family. My confession is that I haven't seen the manga at all, but I know there's been huge praise for it for years now. The character writing is incredible, the dynamics between characters are incredible, the story is fresh and interesting, the plot is compelling, the dialogue is emotional at times and funny at others, the action is done with such intention and style, and every scene has you captivated and hooked. Brought to us by the best at Wit Studio and CloverWorks, the production quality is top-notch, and everything about the show just screams quality. I cannot wait for more episodes. And for folks who haven't watched a lot of anime before and want to get into it, I'd 100% recommend this as a starting point. 10/10