Arcane Reviews: Toradora!

Toradora!

Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to end Romance Month! Now I've actually been having a lot of fun this past month. It was a lot of fun to get out of my comfort zone a bit and really try out some new anime that I either haven't seen yet or that I would like to revisit. I have to say though, I chose the right anime to end this month. As this anime really did something right in so many ways. Now I present my review for Toradora. Is it a truly romantic masterpiece or does it just come apart and falls into little pieces? Let's find out shall we?

Story:
The story here is such a funny and pretty damn cute set up. We have our main character named, Ryuuji Takasu. He's an average 17 year young man who has a very scary looking face, all thanks to his father. He is a pretty normal guy who at first seems very bland and he even admits this himself. Until one day when accidentally ends up getting a love letter from a girl. This girls name is, Tiga Aisaka. She is a short tsundere girl with a major temper and consistently beats the living shit out of Ryuuji. She makes the mistake of giving Ryuuji her love letter which was actually for his friend, Yusaku Kitamura. Then, he tries to cheer her up showing her a bunch of crap he wrote to the girl that he likes who just happens to be Tiga's friend, Minori Kushieda. So in this very weird turn of events the two decide to help each other out. They try to hook each other up with the person that they're interested in. This is a very funny set up and that is one very strong point in the show, the show is very funny. It knows how to have fun with itself. It sets up so many situations in which hilarity can happen and you'll bet that they take full advantage of it. But that's not the only reason why this show is so damn good. It has to major points that are just so fleshed out so well that it was awesome. The romance and the drama. The romance is handled with so much care and treated in such a mature and very adult way that I was just enthralled by it. Every romantic and slightly romantic scene are not just put in to give the fans some sense of "aww isn't that cute?". No all of these scenes play into the overall story and end up shaping and molding each and everyone of the main and side character. The romance knows what it's trying to achieve and just it needs to do to achieve those goals. But the main focus and the main draw of this show is the drama. It is just chalk full of drama from every corner of the screen! It deals with what it means to be in love, how to deal with a dysfunctional family, how to be true to yourself as a person, what the future has in stored for us and if we can really know what the future will be like, and finally my favorite subject tackled in the show. What it means to grow up. This shows is in all conceivable way a coming of age story between all of our main characters. They all have their own personal problems and even more so we see just how they grow from those problems because everyone in this show is pretty much a child. It is such a well written and well executed anime that I was just so satisfied afterwards. Story is a definite win in this case.

Animation:
Now this show knows how to do animation! The animation quality in this show is very good. Character designs look very nice and all the characters had very different and distinct looks from one another. You should also not underestimate this show quality in animation when it needs to amp up the quality. When ever a truly dramatic scene happens the show art style almost changes completely with not only the character's looks and expressions. But they goes as far as to animate their hair moving wildly due to their frantic moving or every twitch and little movement of their body to even straight up body language alone. This show just knows how to use it's animation to the fullest of qualities and it is so beautiful to see as it really is a treat for the eyes.

Music:
Damn this show has a good soundtrack. Now while there isn't a lot of tunes in the show I will say that it was at least very smart in how and when it would use it's songs. Unlike Fruits Basket in which it would just play the same sad song over and over and then save it's other sad song for the end, Toradora doesn't do this. It uses it's song it small bursts from time to time. The show also uses no sounds to really get the weight of the moment then would end it with a piece of a much lager song. But it doesn't play the whole song so that it isn't overplayed. Also all of the songs just did a great job at helping the scenes that they where accompanying. It really grabbed the viewers attention when it needed to. Music here was such an amazing addition to the show and it really pushed it up a notch in it's overall quality.

Characters:
These characters are just great. In some shows you'll have a good amount of likable characters and sadly have some unlikable ones as well. But in Toradora they do the best job in expressing all of these character's personalities and telling you why they are the way are in a very good fashion. None of these characters are shallow, boring, or even one note, there is a reason to everything that they do and it's handled oh so well. You also have a lot of time to grow along with these characters so you never feel like you missed anything. You never feel like there was some big change of heart that happened off screen. You follow all of the characters from start to finish and you feel like they come off as real people that you'd meet in high school. Like I said before when this show starts off all of the characters are kids and by the end it feels like they have grown into adults that can take on this new world ahead of them. You also have the romance between the two main characters, Ryuuji and Tiga. This romance is also given a lot of time to grow as well. You see as they start off as partners the into friends and then eventually into lovers. It is such a beautiful moment when they finally do become a couple because the moment is earned. The whole show just builds and builds up to this moment that when it finally happens you just feel a huge wave of emotions over because you just went on a journey with these characters that now you're happy that it has a great payoff. Characters are handled really well here and I think I've said enough about that.

Nitpicks:
I really only have one little nitpick here and as I said it's really little. The character Ryuuji kinda comes off as an idiot a lot of the time in the show. Now this is all part of his character development but at times I will say that he just seemed like a dumb ass. He kinda never got hints like at all. I mean seriously if you were a girl and you held a big ass sign over your head that said "Do me right here and now you fool!" he'll probably just look at you and say what with the sign or something like that. I was kinda funny to see him completely miss the point but that pretty much it when it comes to my nitpicks.

Overall:
So the question now is: should you watch this show? The answer is a big fat fucking yes. Toradora is a great anime that should not be ignored especially if you are a romance fan. The romance is just amazing and the message of growing up is is done so damn well that it would be a shame is you miss out on this wonderful anime. So check it out like right now!

Arcane Reviews gives Toradora a 9.5 out of 10.

You can watch "Toradora!" on:
Cruchyroll (Sub Only) Note: You do need a Premium Membership to watch past episode 6.
Hulu (Sub Only)              
    

Arcane Reviews: Fruits Basket

Fruits Basket

Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to continue Romance Month with a late review. Yeah sorry about that I was just behind schedule and I didn't finish the anime on time. So now a late review for all of you. Now if you're an anime fan chances are that you've heard of Fruits Basket. It's crazy popular and just about praised by almost if not everyone. Now first off, I HAVE NOT READ THE MANGA AND I'M NOT AT ALL REVIEWING THE MANGA!!!! I'll be judging the anime adaptation completely on it's own. So if I say something negative about the anime it's because I thought that it was bad and I don't care if the manga did better I'm reviewing the anime not the manga. Now with that out the let's begin shall we?

Story:

The story to Fruits Basket is an odd one indeed. We meet a young girl named Tohru as she lives in the woods. Yup. She lives out there so that she can stay out of everyone's way as she believes she can be a burden on people sometimes. She feels that she gets in the way of people ever since her mother died. So now she just kinda lives in the woods, that is until she find out that she's been camp out on Sohma property. The Sohmas are a family or clan depending on how you're looking at it, that usually keep to themselves. Tohru stumbles across their house and they obviously can't let the poor girl live out in the woods all by herself so they decide to take her in. It is in this turn of events that Tohru finds out the Sohmas actually have a bit of a cures on them that changes them into an animal from the Chinese zodiac whenever they get hugged by a person of the opposite sex. So yeah that's a bit odd. Then we follow Tohru and the rest of the Sohma family as they live their day to day life in all of it's comedic splendor. Now that is the best thing about this show is really freaking funny. It has a very good sense of humor and knows how to be funny as all hell. The show also knows how to do drama very well. It can range from very subtle moments to hardcore heart tugging drama and it can get very compelling. To a point. You see the show has a really bad habit of sorta cutting off some of the dramatic scenes and a lot of more romantic scenes with some random bit of comedy that actually ends up hurting the overall tone of the story. Another thing that ends up hurting the show a bit is the romance. Now the romance is pretty much half assed. They really develop Tohru's relationship with any of the male characters and keep everything in a sort of status quo. In where Tohru isn't in a relationship with any of they two male leads but it's obvious as all hell that they both like her and she likes them. It gets pretty damn frustrating seeing them dance around who Tohru might end up with instead of just giving of a nicely developed romance. But when the anime did a romantic scene nicely I will not lie and say that they did do a good job and the scene did come out looking very cute. So story is very much miss with the occasional hit.

Animation:
On the production side of things here I have to say that this show's animation is all over the place. It can go from normal character designs to fucking stick figures. Now anytime the show changes it's art style it's always for comedic purposes. This helps a lot in making the show really funny. Now on the opposite side of this funny as hell animation the character designs themselves are actually very bland looking. There's nothing really ugly looking about them at all but they just all look way too pretty. Like even the eleven years old look really pretty. It all looked so pretty that it became bland. So animation is also in the hit or miss category.

Music:
Holy crap I didn't like this show's soundtrack. Now don't get me wrong, the music in this show isn't bad but it's way too overused. The show doesn't have a lot of tracks to begin with so it's working on a limited range of music here. But the same could be said about Fate/Zero and Elfen Lied but they used there music wisely and was able to make very good use of there music. But in the case of Fruits Basket they about use all of the tracks they have in the first couple of episodes and continue to overuse said tracks even more throughout the show. You will most likely get tired of the same "funny moment" song or of the "sad moment" song. Me personally I got really tired of it. I honestly feel as though the music only did a little bit of a good job in the show for really only the dramatic parts but even those parts the music was also pretty repetitive as well. So music is another part of the show that isn't is strongest aspect.

Characters:
This is also another hit or miss part of the show. You see the show actually has some pretty entertaining characters and a lot of them have some pretty damn good back stories as well. But on the other hand you have some characters who have pretty weak back stories and are annoying as all hell. Take our main character for example, Tohru. She's an overly sweat girl that can forgive anyone no matter what they do to her, she's just a genital loving soul and that really makes her boring. She has very little meat to her character aside from just being really nice and still feeling the effects of her mother's untimely passing but even that is handled with her still smiling and being super optimistic. Also she gets really annoying with just how many times she goofs up and she just makes the most over the top reactions to everything. It's like when Hideaki from Chobits messed up and made himself look like an idiot except in Chobits they purposely Hideaki do something stupid or he just clearly didn't understand a situation so it was okay and funny whenever he did his over the top reactions. But Tohru on the other hand has a full grasp on society but still does these stupid reactions and even worse half of the time she doesn't need to response to the situation at hand like that she's just an idiot. They also give a lot of scene time to the character of Yuki Sohma, one of the male leads. He also rides on the same boat with Tohru in which he doesn't have a very interesting character overall. He's pretty much just a pretty boy who hates the Sohma family because he doesn't like it. It literally goes nowhere else than that and as you would expect it makes him a very boring character. But that's not to say that these characters kill the show. In fact the show makes up it in having a very solid supporting cast and a very good secondary main character. Not only are these characters well developed and fleshed out but they are also very funny to watch as all of them have very different personalities that work insanely well with one another. So even though the two main characters aren't very good all the other side characters and the third main character also having a very good back story as well as being a well developed character. But this show does fall very short one one character in particular.

Nitpicks:
Akito Sohma, the head of the Sohma family and the kind of main antagonist of Fruits Basket. He is told to be a very dangerous individual  and he even caused one of the side characters to go blind in his left eye. He's also a boring ass character as well and his voice actor sound like he was high on horse tranquilizer. Akito is just a stupid little crybaby who feels as though everyone should respect him and that if you don't listen to him you should be punished and all of the Sohmas listen to him out of fear and respect but really I don't see why. He never has a menacing presence to him and I can't understand why everyone has to listen to him. He seems like he can get his shit kicked in by everybody and even more so the biggest villain moment he has is when he causes Hatori to go blind in his left eye. That moment was actually an accident so that doesn't make him as scary as very one says he is. Also he for some reason hate Tohru because she can always look on the bright side of things. That is the most lame ass excuse for you're villain to have something against the main character I have ever heard. This character was so flipping boring and I could not for the life of me see why he was such a intimidating figure to all of the other character.

Overall:
Well I guess to wrap up this review I can say that Fruits Basket was just a barely decent anime, The romance aspect was half assed but it had it's cute parts and even though some of the main characters where one note and generic all of the other characters made up for it in charisma and generally just being better written. So I guess I'll say that Fruits Basket has a lot of good and a lot of bad. Would I recommend it? Not really but at the same time I didn't regret watching it. So take that as you will.

Arcane Reviews gives Fruits Basket a 6 out of 10.

You can watch "Fruits Basket" on:
Funimation (Dub and Sub)                                   

Arcane Reviews: Tenchi in Tokyo

Tenchi in Tokyo

Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to bring you my second review in the theme of Romance Month! Now I'll come out and say that when I was a kid I remembered really liking a show called Tenchi Muyo. It seemed to be a really cool show and I recall really liking the spin-off called Tenchi in Tokyo. So when choosing what anime I was planning on reviewing for Romance Month I thought about going back and revisiting this anime. Does it stand the test of time or does fall flat on it's ass? Well lest find out shall we?

Story:
So as stated before, this is a spin-off of Tenchi Muyo. So none of the events that took place in Tenchi Muyo really matter here because this is a new story. So this story begins with our hero Tenchi deciding that he wants to go to Tokyo to study and train to become a priest just like his grandfather. Now this would be all right and well if it wasn't for two alien princesses, two intergalactic police officers, a super genius, and a space pirate all being upset because of his leaving. He tells them he'll be alright and then it's off to Tokyo where he meets a beautiful young women named Sakuya. The two start to get along and it seems that all is right in Tenchi's world. Well except that all of the people that he left at home start crying and complaining because Tenchi went to do his own thing. Oh and there's a dark presents watching over all of them and may be planning for all of their doom but it's no big deal. Now you think that I was kidding when I say that the main evil was no big deal but really I'm not. The plot of this show takes so many side tracks that you'll soon start to forget the main point of this show. Also the main villain is a horribly weak villain. She's boring, uninteresting, and horribly one note, she's not treating at all. The only two saving grace for this story is the fact that it was pretty funny. Nothing that is spectacular but it was able to get a chuckle out of me. The final point being the love story. I will not lie and say that this is a pretty weakly done romance seeing as how it felt rushed but at the same time they were able to convey that the two leads were in fact in love with each other. So whenever they showed us a scene of them being with each other you felt that they were genuinely in love if all be it a little to quick. So story is not the best part of this anime. But at least the romance was cute.

Animation:
Well what can I say? This is an old anime so the animation is a little dated. Does this mean that it's bad? Well kinda yeah. The art style isn't particularly bad but the character designs look pretty bad. Big example would be the main villain who has a very small body and a stupid huge cape that kinda just floats around her, it just looks dumb. There are also points in the show when it tries to be funny by giving the characters some over exaggerated faces. Now a lot of anime do this but in Tenchi in Tokyo it looks really bad. It just looks like the artist was trying way too hard to make it look funny that it just looked awful. Fight scenes actually looked pretty good though. They moved very well but aside from that I really didn't mesh well with this animation. Not really so much because it's dated but mainly because it looked bad to me. I also know that there is a lot of anime fans that don't really like old looking shows and in all honesty, this would not sway your opinions.

Music:
This show's music was just alright. Yeah that's just the just of it. Nothing really stood out when it came to the music. All the songs sounded generic and uninspired in every way shape and form. It's liked they said "we need a lot of songs but that just sound okay so we can make them work in multiple scenes all through out the anime!". It was all just so forgettable and boring but is wan't bad. The music never made me just want to rip my ears out it just put me to asleep. Music is just "blah" in this department.

Characters:
Now characters here are really strange to me. Strange because they aren't unlikable in fact I liked some of them quite a bit. But just like the music of the show they aren't very interesting and pretty generic. None them are bad but they do just fit in a character archetype that gets them to just okay status. The two lead characters that have the romance come off cute and innocent but that's about it. The characters themselves are just so underdeveloped that when the big heart-warming moment comes during their love story it's just comes off as cute not really super deep which love is so it's played up here just alright. Same goes for the rest of the characters here too, they're all just alright so their emotion during the whole story just comes off as alright. All the characters are just alright in this show so not much generic and uninteresting.

Nitpicks (Warning Spoilers!!!!):
Well not much to put here seeing how the whole show is riddled with bad stuff. But I will say that thing that did bother me was the ending. In the we figure out that Sakuya was really just a shadow of the main villain Yugi. So she in a sense dies in the end and it comes off as pretty emotional. But what bugs me is that after her pretty much death scene in where we see Tenchi did in fact really love her, it's all but swept under the rug. They play it off as a "summer fling". Yes the woman who loved the main character and even defied her master so she can save the man that she loves is just tossed aside because she wasn't part of the main cast. I'm sorry but that's just awful, you wrote this character to be a sympathetic and gave her a sort of sad death and you just write off her death like it was nothing. Hell at least in fucking Guilty Crown and Fate/Stay Night we see that the love interest left an impression on the main characters. They even acknowledge that they were in love this their particular woman and showed some sort of grief over the fact that they're gone. But Tenchi doesn't seem to give two fucking shits over the fact that Sakuya is fucking dead! Fuck you show, fuck you!

Overall:
Well to wrap things up I have to say that Tenchi in Tokyo is dated as hell. Past all nostalgia I had for it I have to say this was just not a very good show. Aside from the romance being put together alright there is nothing else here I can say to recommend this anime. So I say skip this show and find a much more romantic show to enjoy with your loved one. Meanwhile I'll be drinking myself into another coma.

Arcane Reviews gives Tenchi in Tokyo a 4 out of 10.

You can watch "Tenchi in Tokyo" on:
Funimation (Dub and Sub)              

Arcane Reviews: Chobits

Chobits

Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to welcome you to Romance Month! Just as the title suggests I will be reviewing romantic anime all throughout the month of February because I am a lonely person who needs to feel special about myself. But anyway I figured I'd start off this month by reviewing a little anime which many consider a classic in the anime world. I am of course talking about the 2002 anime, Chobits. Just how romantic is this anime? Well lets find out shall we?

Story:

The story takes place in the not too distant future where we follow our protagonist Hideki Motosuwa a young man who has figured out that he was not accepted into college. So in order to get into college he enrolls into a prep school in Tokyo where he sees persocoms. Persocoms are these computers that look and sound just like humans and can do just about anything so Hideki wants one really badly but can't afford one because he's piss broke. But on the night of his arrival he sees a persocom laying in the trash and seemingly unharmed. So like any person he decides that he'll take it for himself. Afterwards he awakebs the small persocom and she doesn't know anything and she can't speak at all except for the one word chi which ends up becoming her name. So now that Hideki has Chi as well as his prep school all sort out we get ready for one big slice-of-life anime because that's pretty much what Chobits is. Now I have nothing against slice-of-life personally, in fact I love the anime Steins;Gate and that a of bit slice-of-life right there. But with that being said the main story of Chobits is as you would expect Chi and Hideki falling in love with each other and it kinda of takes forever to tell that story. Chobits is only 27 episodes long but really this story could've been told in about 15 to 20 episodes max. Hell three of those episodes you can just scrape off because they're clip shows! Yes, Chobits had not one not two but three clip shows. Like what the hell? Also there are a lot of episodes that go nowhere. The episode where Chi has to buy underwear, the beach episode, and an episode were Hideki and Chi help clean the whole apartment that they live in. It all just feel like filler. The show however does have a pretty good sense of humor and got me to crack up quite a few times. Most of the jokes revolve around poking fun at Hideki because he's a perv or Chi misunderstanding something, which somehow leads back to making Hideki look like a perv amazingly. The show can also be pretty damn good when it comes to drama as well. Now these moments aren't too heavy mind you seeing as how the show has a very light tone. But damn when the drama need some emotional weight they bring in the anvil. So the show can be very good at times but can also drag on quite a bit.

Animation:

Well I guess the next question is; just how pretty does the show look? Well put your hearts at ease because Chobits looks very pretty. Madhouse is behind the animation for this one and that makes me laugh a bit seeing as how Madhouse also did Trigun and Death Note but I digress. The show has some very nice looking character designs for all of them even if they fall in the simple or bland category. Hideki also has a little cool design that I noticed and I like a lot. Seeing as how he's not from Tokyo he doesn't have the same eyes as everyone. All the other characters have these big eyes with big pupil. Hideki on the other hand has relatively smaller eyes with much smaller pupils. I just that that was cool. Also the animation for movement is quite good when it needs to be. Characters won't move a lot but when they do they look very fluent and it looked nice, though I would have like to see more. Also when ever you had Hideki's wild day dreams or fantasy is another moment the animation can be look very good. So not much else to say aside from the fact that the show looks good and moves well but then again it's Madhouse and I wouldn't expect anything less from them.

Music:

Now here is were Chobits freaking shines. Not gonna lie Chobits has a pretty damn good soundtrack. The music fits every well with the mood that's going on from scene to scene and it was just awesome to listen too. All the tracks were nice and up beat when they needed to be but when things got dark that's when the music just kicked it into over-gear and gave you some great tracks. All the more melancholy and darker tone songs are just amazing and puts the right feeling and mood into any given scene. I honestly feel that if the music wasn't as good as it is this show would not be that great. So as you can see I loved the music in this show and it really boosted up my enjoyment overall.

Characters:

This is another department that Chobits did pretty well in. All the characters in Chobits are actually given a lot of time to develop and become very likable over the series. None of them were too out there or over exaggerating and I came off like just about the whole cast. Hideki is a giant perv but a really good guy who doesn't want to see people upset so he'll try helping them but he's not an idiot. He knows that sometimes things can get really bad and you'll have to take the pain in stride which is something that you don't see a lot of anime protagonist really accept. You also have Chi who doesn't know much of anything but doesn't really mind and wants to go out and learn everything. She's very cute and also considerate of other peoples emotions even if she doesn't fully understand them. The characters are actually really fleshed out and I found myself really enjoying all of them. So yeah this show may not have a strong cast of characters but it is a good cast.

Nitpicks:

Now this is what really hurts Chobits in my opinion. As I stated before the show gets side tracked a lot and it just feels longer then it really needs to be. You have episode where nothing happens to advance the plot and I was bashing myself over the head saying " Get on with it!". But the biggest thing about Chobits that bothered me was the whole "can people love persocoms" thing. Now we all know that Chi and Hideki are going to fall in love with each other, that's the whole point of the show. But then out of left field you have people telling Hideki that it's wrong to love persocoms. They say that people are losing interest in other people and that it doesn't matter what a persocom goes through it's just a computer. They have this setting established throughout the entire show and even have two fucking subplots that revolve around this damn idea. But then all of a sudden all of the characters, including the ones who told Hideki that it was wrong. That is't okay to love Chi and it shouldn't matter what she is, as long as he loves it's okay. Wait! Didn't you motherfuckers just say that that was wrong?! Now you're saying "JK dude, bang that robot." where the fuck did this change of heart come from!? Yeah this 180 switch on ideas was really weird to me and dragged down the show a bit.

Overall:

In conclusion I guess all I have to say is that Chobits is a very nice romantic anime that I feel was able to entertain me. Even though the got side tracked I still found myself enjoying it and the romance between Hideki and Chi was cute and came off as genuine and natural. They seemed to fall in love with each other in a semi realistic way and I really enjoyed it. So I believe that Chobits a very good anime to watch with a special someone and enjoy the romantic goodness. Meanwhile I'll be drinking myself into a coma because I'm single.

Arcane Reviews gives Chobits a 7 out of 10.

You can watch "Chobits" on:

Funimation (Dub and Sub)

Netflix (Dub and Sub)