Monday, October 22, 2018

[New][October 2018] Goblin Slayer - Edge'tastic Goodness.

Screenshot does not accurately portray the Cinematography effects of this scene.

Last Seen: Episode 3

Summary: Rumor has it that, in a certain guild in the middle of nowhere, there is an extraordinary man who has climbed all the way to the Silver rank, one of the highest possible for adventurers, just by killing goblins, and only goblins. He does not accept any quest besides goblin slaying quests.

Meanwhile, a Priestess fresh from the temple enlists in the adventurer's guild, and as soon as she's done turning in her forms and receiving her nametag, she's approached by other new adventurers like her, and they set off on their very first quest. A simple goblin slaying quest...


First Impression: Well, this rather seems like your standard setting for fanta...THAT ESCALATED VERY QUICKLY

My Opinion: Are you squeamish? No? Then watch this show. By the time the credits were rolling, I felt like I had just finished watching something in a cinema theater, despite being thoroughly disheartened with it in the first few minutes. Of course, that's the effect I'm sure they wanted to impart. The show literally opens with a disclaimer on the top of the screen on Crunchyroll's website 'This show contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised'.

I have literally never seen that before, on any anime. That's saying something, considering I got duped into watching a Hentai's first episode on WatchAnimeNow's website because the summary seemed like your standard slice of life trash, and I needed a filler show. Long story short I shut that shit off as soon as the brother and sister climbed into a bathtub. Together. Naked. With no censoring or anything. And started getting busy. Or maybe they weren't? I didn't stay to find out, but that shit certainly didn't have a 'Viewer Discretion is Advised' warning sticker on it.

So yeah, if offensive things offend you horribly, piss off. If you like horror flicks though, this show right here is YOUR JAM.
Especially high notes for the Priestess character immediately being likeable as the show goes on. Minus some points for the childhood friend that shows up later literally sounding like a child, figuratively and literally. That one better not have a lot of screen time, or she's going to need a hell of a lot more depth. It's moving in the right direction in that regard by the end of episode 3, so promising prospects all around.

I have great confidence in giving this show an all around,

Recommendation, with the only limiter being whether or not you balk at horror-type scenes. Stuff gets bloody and gritty real damn fast when they get into that cave.

Monday, October 8, 2018

[New][October 2018] That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime (Tensei shitara Slime Datta Ken) - Looking great right out of the gate!

PFF, HA HA HA, literally "Get in muh Belleh!"

Last Seen: Episode 2

Summary: Satou Mikami is a 37 year old unremarkable corporate office worker, finally well on his way climbing the corporate ladder, and making some good money. He's invited out one day by one of his junior coworkers in the office, so that he can show off and brag to Satou about his new girlfriend. Things go awry, when a man with a knife makes an attempt on their lives, and Satou is stabbed protecting his junior.
As he watches and feels his life literally bleed out in front of him, a strange voice begins talking in his head, prattling on about 'Skills' and 'Skill Combinations' in response to everything he's thinking. Finally, with his last breath begging his junior to wipe his hard-drive on his computer at home, he dies...and wakes up again somewhere else, unable to feel heat or cold, to see properly, and unable to feel or use his hands or feet. Slowly, as he feels things out with his new situation, it sinks in...he's now a slime!

First Impression: Sweet, a protagonist that's not a teen! Ah shit, there's the teen...AH SHIT THEY KILLED THE MATURE GUY! Well this is going in the trash bin...wait. Huh? Oh jesus not another slime! Oh Great, and he has a "Predator" skill, that's just bloody fantastic...

My Opinion: Honestly, I don't know why I decided to put this on the block for watching. Probably just that I'm quickly running out of shows to fill my time slots... I can't eat and play games at the same time, so I like to keep at least one or two shows to watch every day to give myself a reminder to eat. Having just recently been burned by a slime scene in an episode, and by a general "as I expected" result of a series, by all rights, I should have just wrote this off and ignored it. I was probably close to doing that too, since the second episode came out the day after I watched the first one, I left it to sit for almost a week.

Things started off great, got rocky, got horrible, and then by the end of the first episode I was drooling for the second. But literally all of that happened inside my head, rather than being objective judgements of the episode. Most of it has to do with Satou monologuing as he's dying, and me taking that a bit too seriously for the generation of the "Predator" skill. To be fair, this is a show from Japan, and I've been burned so many times. My soul must look like a charcoal briquette by now.

In short, I'm already Recommending this show, because it's looking like it's going to be a fantastically stable and mature story and main character. I think that makes a significant difference, one I should, and intend to, pay more attention to in future. The older and more mature the main character is, the self-same the story tends to be as a reflection, since most stories are told from the main characters perspective. Looking back, I've had an almost 100% track-rating of loving shows with mature or older main characters driving the story and the plot forward.



To make a point, there's nothing explicitly wrong with the first episode, I'm just so cynical and twitchy these days I immediately made as many horrible assumptions as I could at the slightest twitch of potential for irritation or outright bad ideas.

I remember watching a Youtuber video by a Anime critique/reviewer, and them explaining that the "three episode rule" of deciding if a show that just started is good or not, was a farce, and that you can absolutely tell if a show is going to be trash in its first episode. The longer I use a critical eye to examine shows to decide on things to write for the blog, the more I agree with the idea. Comparing the first episode of this show, to "How not to Summon a Demon Lord" makes for an amazing and stark contrast.

While I liked, and enjoyed, that show to its finish, I never did really expect much of it, and to the contrary, it literally gave me exactly what I feared it would...but it was still a pretty nice show, and I do still like a lot of the things it had in it. I just feel like it was tied down by its "harem genre" rather than benefiting from it. Then again, I don't think I've ever encountered a show that 'benefited' from being a harem genre member...just shows that couldn't ever possibly amount to being anything else.

Slime Reincarnation on the other hand, had me drooling for more by the first episodes end, with my brain on fire the entire time I was at work playing with all the ideas it had introduced about its setting and story. I was so bloody happy that the next episode was coming out as soon as I got home, and that's a feeling I miss. That excitement, that eagerness. The invigoration of my mind and curiosity. I used to, and still do, love a lot of the anime I've watched over the years for that effect, it's why I love anime so much.
It's also why I'm such a downer on shows that, in my eyes, are dragged down and tarnished by japan's anime industry bullshit and fan-service demands.

You all should give this show a shot. It may be a bit 'talk-happy' for some peoples tastes, it shows in spades that it was obviously made from a light novel, but I'm beginning to understand that it is for precisely that reason, that I'm enjoying things. I like a somewhat slower, steadier, and more reliable narrative with some thought and detail to it. At least, so long as it's not fucking drowning in detail like "Dances with Dragons" was. I still need to make myself finish that and throw some kind of post up here warning people about how utterly off-putting the show is.