It's taken me 30 years to finally watch Detective Conan.
Shinichi Kudo is a high school detective when one day he is poisoned trying to stop the mysterious black organization, instead of dying, Shinichi is shrunk into a child form, now living with Ran Mori and detective Kogoro Mori, he takes on the name Conan Edogawa, with gadgets in hand ranging from powered soccer balls, tranquilizer darts, voice changing bow ties and a rocket skateboard along with a willing group of child detectives, Conan sets out to solve mysteries to eventually lead back to the Black Organization to one day reclaim his previous form, although Kogoro seems to get all the credit because Conan is still stuck as a kid.
Seems like Detective shows always get the long runner treatment, Detective Conan posseses the same spirit as the likes of Doraemon but has enough grit to not alienate itself from an older audience, it's got a healthy load of action and each episode and movie draws well from a strong cast and strong writing, it does suffer from early era dubbing and it has the Lupin the 3rd problem of not having much to distinguish itself between it's episodes and movies, even turning up in Detective Precure could be considered a standard episode for Conan.
Final Verdict: Detective Conan is a decent watch with 30 years worth of content to keep you entertained for months just don't expect the ground to break.
Let's see how CGI stacks up.
Lupin is tracking down an artifact known as the Bresson Diary, a piece his grandfather failed to obtain many years ago.
Crossing paths with a young archeologist named Laetitia, it becomes clear that the treasure the diary links to known as Eclipse becomes a desperate race against the Nazi Organization Ahnenerbe to prevent the destruction of the world.
A typical extended Lupin plot with just enough absurdity to be film worthy and with it being CGI this time it feels more "film" than ever before.
It's not Cagliostro good let's be clear on that, the cast settle into their regular roles so well, the film acts like a Lupin bingo card, the voice cast is stellar as always.
Final Verdict: There isn't really a lot to talk about, this is Lupin at his finest and along with some now iconic moments will sit well within the Pantheon of this near 60 year old franchise
Yet another underwhelming girls anime.
The Irousu are arriving in waves on earth and it's up to the Star Guardians of Shinjugamin to stop them, things are set in play when a hyper competent aloof guardian named Misaki shows up easily defeating most Irousu on arrival, with things gradually escalating and the lives of the class to indulge in, can the Star Guardians stop the creeping force coming.
We live in a post Love Live society when copy cat anime based on service games keep cropping up, at worst they are super bland and at best I can pick a character and ask them to serve a better anime, the cast is too big for a 12 episode run and lacks any bite with a plot twist so predictable I figured it out by episode 2, even the costumes lack impact which you'd think would be a selling point, no dub, but that's a good thing, I'm not in the mood for it.
Final Verdict: Short review but it doesn't deserve a long one, it's painfully generic with elements done so much better in better anime.
Sometimes I remember that I should post here.
Alya is a student of Russian descent who is a member of the student council, she develops a crush on Masachika who has his own history with a mysterious Russian girl, with Masachika ending up the student council and in the running against his sister, he decides to support Alya in this endeavor, Alya does indeed confess her feelings in Russian but Masachika can understand it.
Start with the good, Alya herself is perfect because both sub and dub voices are done by fluent Russian speakers so her routine is believable, and there's a lot of charm for it to be a solid rom com.
But maybe it's because the dub has a bad habit of inserting it's own jokes and memes that have no bearing on the original script, I feel that there is too much winking at the camera and the whole routine with Yuki Suou just makes it harder to watch, but I think it's biggest weakness is that I felt that the anime was over so quickly that I didn't really remember half of what I watched.
The dub is well cast but not well scripted, way too much self aware humour.
Final Verdict: It seems to have more respect for the Russian language than it does it's audience, that you'll forget what it was even about.
With all the talk of AI, especially when this site has been ravaged by AI bots, I think this anime will be a warning.
Blade is a former hero given a second chance at the prestigious Hero Academy with the intention of making as many friends as possible, starting with class Queen Earnest Flaming, he gradually wins over all the students especially the female ones by being the most broken invincible character possible.
You can immediately see better versions of each character in other anime, it's been a pet peeve of mine for a while now but whenever it comes up it bears repeating, if you are doing an expy of a famous character, don't make it so bloody obvious!
Sophie is a clone who is an expy of another clone who copies the abilities of the hero and like AI, can't quite do it, and she's the main subplot of the anime, the rest is stupid antics with no stakes, just someone's poorly drawn male fantasy, it's cheap, it's boring, it's not even funny and it's exactly the type of shit AI would create, the only real shocking thing about this anime is that it wasn't created by AI.
No dub, but I can immediately see who would voice which character.
Final Verdict: It looks, feels and plays like an AI slop anime but it was made with human hands, these titles worry me as this sort of generic anime is becoming too normal.
Footnotes - If we ever see an actual fully made AI anime, then that means I have to praise every shit anime I've ever reviewed for being made by human hands.
I never want to give them that kind of credit, so keep that AI machine away from anime, otherwise this is the type of thing it will create.
