Anime/Manga Review the Anime Above You

Simple little thread that might help people find things to watch or something. Simply give a short (like a couple of lines) review of the series suggested in the post above yours and a score out of ten. Then leave the title of a series for the next person to do the same for.

I'll start things of with something I haven't seen but am definitely thinking of giving a try. Boku no Hero Academia.

BNHA is an amazing series that I feel every anime fan should watch. Izuku, the (cute and lovable!!) main character struggles to keep up with the world where 80% of the world has developed superpowers -- or quirks. Early on into the series he meets his superhero idol who passes a quirk down onto him. Some viewers might consider this the easy way out for the plot and less interesting than developing a character to fit into the hero world without a quirk, but Izuku was by no means made perfect. He has to work especially hard to make up for the 14+ years his classmates have already had to adjust to and develop their own quirks. He is often reckless and lacks control, and therefore constantly ends up in the hospital bed.

The awesome thing about the show is that while Izuku is clearly the main character, the show does not revolve just around him nor is he guaranteed victory solely for being the protagonist. His classmates hold importance and help drive the plot forward. Izuku himself faces constant struggles as a result of his rash actions and stubbornness.

The artwork and animation is high quality and charming, but what really stands out, especially in season 2, are the fights. They are immersive and exciting to watch. Along with the action, the characters and humor are enough to grab and hold onto most viewers. The soundtrack is another amazing aspect to it, if you can take some focus off the already amazing fight scenes. =p It's an amazing show that holds a lot of importance to me. ♡ I give it a 10/10.

Uhhh how about One Piece?!

Hmm, One Piece. A series that I've always held immense love for.

But I can't really say I'd recommend One Piece to anyone due to the following reasons which heavily detract from the experience that you could've had if not for a botched up adaptation -

1) Length - It is too long. Mostly because of how stretched out they've made the canon parts every episode in order to try and maintain a safe distance from the manga. A lot of other long running shows can manage to fit a lot more in a fraction of the episodes One Piece has had over the course of its 15+ years of run. 800+ episodes is a lot. Once you're out of the free parts of your life and into the final years of university/corporate life, you don't really have the time for something this long.

2) Bad Pacing - the anime started off with decent pacing. Never really had an issue with it till about episode 200. They started stretching things out from somewhere around that part. A lot of episodes feel like they don't really have enough content in them for me to actually feel like I should invest my time into it. 20 minutes of episode usually contains about 8-10 minutes of content. :/

3) Bad Animation and Art - Look at some of the shorter shounen adaptation by BONES, Madhouse and you'll see why One Piece horribly fails here. It comes with the series being a long running series, yes, but madhouse did show with HxH 2011 that you can have a long running show AND make it look amazing too.

Those are the reasons I don't (more like can't) watch the anime anymore. I can't convince myself that it is anything other than a massive waste of time. Which is a damn shame since the manga is easily one of the most well crafted stories I've ever read with an amazing world, great characters and just fantastic art which consistently stays pretty good. One Piece, as a series, is amazing. The anime adaptation - definitely not. It could have been an amazing masterpiece if the series was adapted in the form of shorter seasonal anime like most of the popular shounen series are being adapted right now. But as it stands now, the anime is a severely watered down version of the manga that merely has an amazing cast of voice actors and some really great songs in its OST as its only saving grace.

I'll go with something I haven't seen so far, either. Girls und Panzer.

derozio said:

3) Bad Animation and Art - Look at some of the shorter shounen adaptation by BONES, Madhouse and you'll see why One Piece horribly fails here. It comes with the series being a long running series, yes, but madhouse did show with HxH 2011 that you can have a long running show AND make it look amazing too.

Click to expand...

I do want to say here, though, that because One Piece is by Toei and is also always going to be one of the longest Shounen in existence with a pretty consistent schedule, it comes with the territory- but not always.

Toei does a lot of outsourcing for its animation because of the costs involved and the other shows on its plate (such as, right now, Dragon Ball Super). With this in mind, it does actually have some pretty fantastic animators that work on it every now and again. Naoki Tate, for instance, who's been doing a bang-up job in Super, does some pretty fine work, especially where character acting is concerned. Similar praise can be given to Ryo Onishi for his expressive animation and impactful fight scenes.

I won't say this as fact, of course, but I do think that it really is the size of the series as well as the time that it would take to make well-animated segments consistently that does lead to its inconsistent art and the sub-par impression that it leaves. Comes with the territory considering the animation staff itself is rather inconsistent, after all. This in mind, the show can have some pretty damn great animation when the studio sees it as necessary and, I would say, if you really want to experience it visually take a gander at the movies (which I haven't seen but have seen the sakuga of).

...That said, the manga's art is pretty consistent, chock full of detail, and just plain good, so I'll always be an advocate for that, just wanted to expand on the bit about its visuals to give a bit of context as to why it really couldn't consistently meet the aesthetic candy that comes from a Bones or a Madhouse.