You wouldn’t really think that singing vampires in visual kei inspired costumes could go too far wrong. The visual spectacle alone should be entertaining and if they actually managed to create a half-decent story to hold it together, it would make Visual Prison worth watching. Throw in my love of vampires in fiction and I was definitely checking this anime out.
But did they manage to make me want to keep watching.
Watch or Drop? Rules
Rules modified for the Autumn 2021 season.
The anime must be new (not a sequel or spin-off).
I’ll watch as much as it takes to make a decisionas to whether the anime will be added to the watch/review list or dropped and forgotten. For good.
First Impressions of Visual Prison
Okay, ten minutes into the first episode and we’ve had a character catch a train and walk a bit and in between we’ve had him listening to music with cut-aways to a music video, then a band literally drop out of the sky and sing, then another band kind of show up and sing as well.
And for some reason they have swords with microphones on the pommels.
Problem is, once you stop looking at the interesting costumes you realise there’s pretty much nothing happening here other than singing and the performances aren’t interesting enough to make you want to stick around and listen to yet another vampire sing.
Honestly, this first episode of Visual Prison was definitely even less enthused about narrative than I suspected from the write up.
If you are after a wide range of hot vampire designs with extremely overdone wardrobes than you’ll probably find exactly what you are looking for here. The character designs are by far the most interesting, if perhaps only interesting, thing going on in this episode.
Now I’ll admit, I did bow out before I got to the end of episode one but that was only because having already determined I was not continuing with this anime my brain went into hyper-critical mode and ultimately it just wasn’t worth spending any longer on it.
So positives for Visual Prison? I’m sure the art-book will end up looking amazing.
Visual Prison Series Negatives:
Um…
Okay let’s just focus in on the swords that are microphones and how awkward and ridiculous that looks. Not to mention, for what purpose?
That anime episodes only have twenty minutes in which to convey anything and half of this episode is gone and I actually couldn’t tell you the main character’s name. Actually about the only name I really got was the front man of the band he liked.
More than that, I was struggling at times to understand how sequences were supposed to fit together. We have these two vampires show up in a helicopter and they are seemingly talking to the crowd but there’s no helicopter noise or excessive wind as there should be if they actually opened a helicopter door and stood there.
They then go through this elaborate ritual where they kind of pay homage to the moon but they clearly aren’t in the helicopter at that point. If anything it was like that nebulous space where Sailor Moon transformation sequences occur, only there was no transformation. Though they did get their sword/microphones. Anyway, after that we’re back in the helicopter and leap out.
I think they then perform on the stage which might be the pop-up one that appeared on the back of a truck but while they are performing it looks way larger.
And wow I’ve listened to three edgy songs excessively laden down with the type of imagery one expects from a high school poet and care not even a little bit about anything going on here in Visual Prison.
Verdict?
I’ll be blunt… No. If I had a choice of watching the rest of this first episode or watching the first episode of Tesla Note on repeat five times, I would not choose to finish watching this episode.
Visual Prison seemed like an apt title. The visuals drew me in but then I felt trapped until I remember I can just close the player.
Images from: Visual Prison. Dir. J. Furuta. A-1 Pictures. 2021
Here’s a young girl who wants to talk about changing the world while she allow the status quo to continue.
How will Eighty-Six go in its opening episodes?
Watch or Drop? Rules
Rules modified for the Autumn 2021 season.
The anime must be new (not a sequel or spin-off).
I’ll watch as much as it takes to make a decisionas to whether the anime will be added to the watch/review list or dropped and forgotten. For good.
And here’s the war-weary realist of the story – naturally a teenage boy.
First Impressions of Eighty-Six:
After the Price of Smiles I wasn’t exactly inclined to jump into another mecha fantasy anime particularly when I heard about Lena, the military girl who is pretty naive. Don’t get me wrong, a fantasy, military story could be amazing but we’ve had a fair run of ordinary to terrible ones recently and so I put off giving this one a spin for a bit.
My first impressions were that Lena was almost obnoxiously naïve in her self-righteousness and I haven’t quite figured out yet why she’s so protected given the military really shouldn’t put up with her tirades and speeches. Then again, she’s still doing her job and does nothing to change the way things are done other than make speeches so I guess she’s largely harmless in the grand scheme of things.
The 86 are the more interesting characters and the first three episodes give us some glimpses of their daily life and their battles but we’re still early days. What really isn’t clear is what the end game is for this story. The set-up seems to indicate the war will just end itself (a fact that seems as suspicious as the declaration that no humans are dying in the war) so if we’re not fighting to end the war and so far there is no sign of a rebellion or uprising it really makes you wonder where this story wants to take us.
While we’re playing with a lot of cliches, the story set-up is actually pretty interesting. The city with its homogenous looking people and clean and safe environment built at the expense of the lives of those essentially cast off and declared inhuman. While it is blunt and lacking in nuance, it does have a lot of parallels to situations in real life and I am curious as to what 86 intends to do with the set-up (hopefully something).
Look at all the happy, silver-haired people not dying in a war.
The action has also been pretty interesting. While the mechs haven’t been on screen a lot they are an interesting design and some of their movements have been pretty cool. Also nice to see a mecha anime that doesn’t feel the need to just make yet another humanoid robot swinging a sword around. Not that there’s anything wrong with that design, it’s just kind of been done to death at this point.
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Series Negatives:
Sadly, Lena, the main character so far, has left little impression on me other than I’d like to give her a good slap. If you are that angry about how the 86 are treated then actually do something instead of just shouting at the occasional person for bad-mouthing them. The fact that she feels like she’s doing anything for them by chatting to them each night just kind of irritates me and I was actually really glad at the end of episode 3 when one of them gave her a good dose of reality.
Good intentions are great and all but actions matter more.
However, outside of a dislike of Lena’s starting point (and she could grow as the series progresses), I didn’t find much to complain about in these opening episodes. There’s a nice balance of learning about the world, meeting the characters and some action and it keeps things interesting. It isn’t moving at a fast pace though so I’m curious as to how much it will get through in 11 episodes given in 3 it really hasn’t done much other than set-up.
Verdict?
I’m not as hooked on this one as some other shows I’ve tried but I was pretty invested as I watched the first three episodes and I am interested in the outcome. It is a definite watch from me once it finishes.
Images from: Eighty-Six. Dir T. Ishii. A-1 Pictures. 2021
I remember back when Sword Art Online had just begun. I remember the first episode of the Aincrad arc and just how quickly it seemed to pass by and how heavily the bombshell at the end of that episode fell. I remember rapidly skipping to the next episode (it came out before I could stream things as they aired but that meant I could binge) and I remember just how absorbed I became with the characters and the story and just how much fun the whole viewing experience was.
Nostalgia, sigh.
Admittedly, the entertainment of the very first series from 2012 shouldn’t really have all that much to do with whether or not this story arc from 2018-2019 is actually any good, nor should I compare them and expect that to be the same. Kirito has grown as a character since then, the technology has moved on, and almost all the other characters we spend any length of time with in Alicization are completely new. It is its own experience but not stand-alone. The events in the real world do require pre-existing knowledge of the franchise to make sense so even if I wanted to give Alicization a clean break from the seasons of SAO past, it wouldn’t really be doable.
Could someone totally new to the franchise start with Alicization?
Sure. They’d miss some context for things but mostly I doubt that would change the overall viewing experience. Except perhaps that a new viewer would go in without any expectations of Sword Art Online and so some of the disappointment I faced while watching Aliciation wouldn’t have played a factor. Maybe a new audience member could just enjoy a romp in the new world with the new cast and not wonder what happened to the cool and reckless Kirito before he ‘grew up’ and became the boring, moralising and largely passive protagonist we encounter here.
I know. I just called Kirito boring. I didn’t think I’d ever do that. Lots of other people did even back in Aincrad but I always really liked Kirito as a character. Alicization was the killing blow though.
Part of this is because Kirito spends a large part of Alicization seemingly mentoring Eugeo. Being pushed into a mentor or teacher role means that he does need to explain and sermonise and take the high ground in order to lead by example. It also means standing back at times and taking the background role to let the student grow. And honestly, given the context of Alicization, which I’ll get to in a bit, Kirito moving into that role makes perfect sense, but it isn’t interesting.
The sacrifice of Kirito’s spirit and character, though a significant blow to my enjoyment of the franchise, possibly could have been rationalised as Eugeo is actually an interesting character to watch grow. While never as interesting or dynamic as Aincrad’s Kirito, he wasn’t a bad substitute. However, Eugeo’s character arc comes to an abrupt and fairly pointless and ridiculous end by the end of this half of Alicization. So ultimately I watched Kirito help another character grow at the expense of being entertaining in his own right and then that character isn’t going to do anything because they are already finished. Or at least, finished enough as I don’t doubt SAO’s ability to come up with rubbish reasons for this not to be the end.
Or Kirito, you could maybe do something. That would be nice.
This isn’t the first time Kirito has had someone he’s mentored and helped has died. The Moonlit Black Cats, particularly Sachi, were a large part of his character growth in Aincrad and Sachi’s death left emotional scars that Kirito had to work really hard to overcome.
The problem is that Eugeo’s character had pretty much 20 something episodes of mentoring and then before he surpassed his master he died and his death hasn’t seemed to amount to anything, though perhaps they’ll capitalise on it in the next half. All I know is that it left an incredible taste of dissatisfaction in my mouth.
Well, it was nice getting to know you Eugeo, even if it turns out to be pointless.
For all that I’ve just attacked the characters, I’m now going to back up a bit and actually look at the fundamental problems in Alicization as a series. Keep in mind, there are some really great moments throughout the 24 episodes. Sequences where one character or another really rises up and does something cool and dramatic and for a moment you can just get swept away. So I am not saying there’s nothing good about Alicization.
However, what really hurts Alicization, other than the time difference between events in the real world and the events in underworld which results in Asuna and the others getting bare minimum screen time and an absolute lack of audience buy in to the event in the real world…
Wouldn’t we love for this to have actually been explored. Sure maybe they’ll get to it in the second half but how long does it take to actually get to a point?
Okay, the time thing probably needs its own section because it was a really unnecessary contrivance that really hurt the pacing of the real world events. With the large gaps of time between when we even saw characters in the real world and how little progress that plot made over the course of a whole season, because events in Underworld move fast, it just isn’t a very effective way to tell a story, particularly in a season spread over more than six months. Perhaps binge watching would alleviate some of this issue but honestly, at times I all but forgot what Asuna and the others were even doing so the dramatic final for them really had next to no impact.
Right, so what really hurts Alicization, other than all that stuff, is the way they execute the story. The idea behind Alicization is actually really interesting with souls being digitalised and raised within a virtual world. The pseudo-science techno-babble explanations of the how and the why don’t really help here but the concept is cool. The problems within that world where those in control of the command codes are corrupt and others are forced through the Taboo Index to essentially obey those of higher standing within the world.
I mean, it isn’t terrible original if we put it in the context of a dystopian kind of story, but it works and there’s a lot of potential ideas for exploration and so many potential paths for the story to take.
And yes, I’m deliberately not going to discuss the use of sexual assault here. It actually fits what the narrative was trying to do and people have already discussed the execution of the scene to death. With so many other issues in the anime to address, the lack of nuance around this particular development is hardly the gravest sin.
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And while Alicization does take some interesting paths and does explore some of the concepts, it does it in an incredibly poorly conceived manner. Where large chunks of information are given to us through forced exposition in the form of incredibly long and artificial sounding dialogue exchanges between characters, and a lot of that information is either repetitive of previous bits of information, or just so abstract that it will make no difference whether the audience has it explained or not, it just doesn’t make for interesting viewing.
Imagine you were watching some kind of fast paced sporting tournament and every now and then the competitors stopped, poured out some cups of teas, and sat around discussing their motives, training methods, and the history of their coach. Then they just get up and start competing again.
Buckle up, this conversation is taking a whole episode. You’ll get flash backs, but they are just going to keep on talking.
Alright, Alicization wasn’t that bad, but the analogy is kind of apt in terms of the enjoyment in viewing.
When you throw in the fact that Kirito and Eugeo set out from Eugeo’s home town to find Alice and end up enrolling in a school and just happily training for a few years (happily may be an exaggeration) and it doesn’t seem like they are in any kind of hurry to achieve their goal, the pace of this story seems all over the shop and goals that drive characters seem to do so selectively. Even once they get to the tower and begin facing off against Integrity Knights, it is very hard to care about these characters as antagonists and their motives for fighting, or not fighting, are really hard to swallow sometimes. As is Alice’s rapid decision to work with Kirito when they were hanging outside of the tower.
Yep, priorities.
What it comes down to is you’d get a moment of excitement or interesting interaction and then Alicization would hit the breaks to explain something to you and just when things got going again it would do the same. With the narrative pacing off the characters really needed to step up to sell some of these exchanges only they didn’t. Outside of Kirito and Eugeo, barely anyone got any screen time and the few who did didn’t really draw me into the story so much as just existed within it.
The music is workable but doesn’t give anywhere near the sense of excitement that I found in the score in the original series. Visuals work fine and the various attacks are pretty cool to watch. Eugeo really wins out here with his sword being exceptionally beautiful and its attack leads to some really interesting effects. Kirito is less lucky and because he gets limited time to go crazy with his sword there are far less moments where he just looks super cool on screen in Alicization. However, overall, Alicization is kind of average to look at. Character designs work as do settings but very little of it is stand out or amazing.
I really did want to like this latest Sword Art Online. I was excited about the return of the franchise and to be honest, my love of the original has meant that subsequent iterations get a lot of leeway. However, Sword Art Online Alicization is not just not good, it is openly obnoxious at times as it drags the audience along and through unnecessarily long sequences and seems to care little about making any character actually more than just another plot point to be resolved. The end results is I didn’t have much fun watching it and realistically, if it hadn’t had the SAO connection, I’d have dropped it after the first cour rather than persevering through all 24 episodes. What’s worse than holding on 24 episodes? Watching 24 episodes for the thing to end on a cliff-hanger.
I feel like I’m writing a break up text to SAO with this review.
Honestly, I can’t recommend this. For those newer anime fans, I still think trying the original SAO is worth it despite the online hate factory for it, but Alicization is a lesser show in almost every way imaginable and while there were many readers of the light novels proclaiming that Alicization would fix the narrative issues with SAO, I think Alicization the anime just found new and improved ways to annoy an audience.
It has been fairly well established at this point that I’m
not a big fan of comedy. Largely this is because a lot of what people tell me
is supposed to be funny I just find either gross or mean-spirited and don’t
find much amusing about it. Then again, what I find to be funny a lot of people
also find gross or just disturbing so to each their own.
What that does mean though is that while I recommended this
series, the conditional part of the recommendation is that I really didn’t like
it. I can see exactly why lots of people do like it, and I do think it is worth
trying if you are looking for a well produced anime, particularly if you like
comedy, but for me this one was one big swing and a miss.
A lot of the problem is with the central premise which I’m
told is supposed to be ironic or amusing but I find just sad. The idea that
confessing puts you under the power of the other person in a relationship, or
that relationships inherently have one person being more powerful than the
other, really rubs me the wrong way and feels like something from several
decades ago that we really should have just left there. That the main
characters are both portrayed as being quite intelligent and yet at no point
draw the conclusion that perhaps they could be equal partners really just makes
the premise of this one hurt to even think about.
I am told that I should just take this as a joke and not
think about it so seriously, however that’s kind of the problem with comedy for
me. Just because they are joking doesn’t mean I find reinforcing notions that
someone should be in control of a relationship and someone should be submissive
particularly amusing. Nor do I find Shinomiya’s general lack of sex education
particularly funny. It is kind of a social tragedy that she is so ill-informed.
Actually, the fact that they keep telling me time and again
how smart these characters are and yet very little of what they do seems even
vaguely smart kind of reminded me of my problem watching Devil and Realist
where William was supposed to be super intelligent but just struck me as being
kind of an idiot. Shinomiya learning to use Twitter in one episode kind of
highlights the overall problem with the set up where they insist this girl is
some kind of super-genius manipulator and yet instead of looking up
instructions, reading the information, trying things out and noting what
happens, she runs into her maid’s bath multiple times and drags her out to
explain fairly simple concepts. I get the trope of the genius who lacks
common-sense but in this case a lot of what Shinomiya does just makes me want
to face-palm so badly.
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However, before you think I’m just out to bash this story for all its worth, there are some great moments for Shinomiya (and indeed most of the cast). The problem is, these moments come seemingly when the premise of the story gets set aside. When we remove Shinomiya from the endless battles against Shirogane and the contrived competitions they establish, and just let her be Shinomiya, a sheltered girl finding small ways to explore the world (such as the episode where she walks to school), we actually have quite a charming character and one worth spending time with. Unfortunately, the anime isn’t really interested in letting the characters just be themselves and continues to force artificial conflict upon them and us over and over again in a tiresome manner.
Fujiwara, the secretary of the student council, is a shining
light in this series. Her character is excellent regardless of context and she
literally brightens scenes just by being in them. She’s also the one character
who is consistently entertaining and amusing partially because she isn’t
working to show off how smart she is and partially because she’s just a well
constructed character who manages to consistently hit the right notes. If you
won’t watch for any other reason, Fujiwara is probably a fairly solid reason to
try Kaguya-Sama: Love is War.
But we should discuss the actual contests the characters get
into. Each episode (or most of them) are split into three sections with each
being a simple vignette where a topic or theme is introduced, we mentally see
how Shinomiya and Shirogane have interpreted the situation to determine how to
‘win’ and then the contest plays out before a winner is decided, or until
Fujiwara unintentionally removes any ability for either character to win. A
narrator sets up each section and at times may seem intrusive and the narrator
also finishes each section by summarising who won or lost and why.
Some of these contests are really straight forward such as
when Shinomiya challenges Shirogane to twenty questions. The problem being that
for someone really smart the answer seems pretty obvious given an exchange in
the set-up to the competition and so the punch line falls a little flat. Other
contests are more abstract such as when they are trying to decide where to go
for Summer vacation.
The end result though is fairly formulaic and while some of
the later episodes move away from this format, over the course of the season,
the majority of episodes will offer more or less the same scenario over and
over again with slightly different dressing on top and perhaps a slightly
different outcome. It is noteworthy that even supporting characters point out
to Shinomiya that her schemes do not work. If the goal is to get Shirogane to
confess, not once has she been successful and yet instead of taking a more
direct approach she persists again and again in her schemes. The same could be
said for Shirogane but far less time is spent with him outside of the student
council so he isn’t quite as filled in as Shinomiya as a character.
If you happen to like this formula or find the skits
amusing, then this one will be golden from start to finish. For those who find
a lack of forward progress in a plot a bit of a sticking point (that would be
me), what it will end up being is fairly frustrating as a series even as some
of these skits will amuse.
What really does elevate Kaguya-Sama: Love is War from just
being another sketch comedy that I didn’t really enjoy, is the production.
Visually this one has a distinct look and is actually fairly impressive with
the creative way it depicts the battles and character emotions. While there
isn’t a lot of movement and certainly no hand to hand combat or anything of the
like, the animation is pretty spot on and far and away of higher quality than
you would usually expect for the subject matter.
The music is also spot on with an opening and ending that
both support the story and are highly entertaining (worth watching the ending
each time as well), and background music and sounds that really help to spice
up what might otherwise become fairly flat content.
A lot of love has gone in to the production of Kaguya-Sama and realistically as an anime there’s little to complain about. While it personally doesn’t do a lot for me, there are plenty of people who will adore this story and these characters and the presentation makes it all very palatable. The characters themselves will be a bit hit and miss as will the premise but by and large this is an anime that will work for the majority so if you are curious and haven’t tried it be sure to give it a go.
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