A3! Season Spring & Summer
Short Synopsis: The acting troupe Mankai Company scrambles to recruit new members to avoid losing their theater.
Amun’s review:
This isn’t really my kind of show. There, uh, was some acting and a reverse harem thing going on. And the guy napping the bulldozer was funny, I guess. Also….no one in this show except for the guy in black can even spell the word “business.” Pretty obvious he’s trying to give all the second chances possible. I also sorta spaced out halfway through to be honest. The shot of jumping over the fence was cool. But yeah, nothing about this even remotely interested me.
Potential: 0%
Wooper’s review:
As far as bishounen series go, this one was okay. The implausibility of the script is perhaps its main issue, as the main characters seem to be able to convince people of things just by speaking in elevated tones. The acting troupe at the center of the story has precisely one member, yet the owner is able to persuade their landlord not to turn this laughably unprofitable theater into a bar. There’s not an ounce of believability to this story, as the landlord is a major prick, plus he’s just watched the troupe perform for a whopping audience of two people (including himself). Nevertheless, our heroes venture into a sparsely populated city that seems built entirely around the theater industry. They recruit two people by 1) being attractive and 2) quoting Shakespeare, and return to show landlord-san what they’ve accomplished – which is virtually nothing. Has anyone in this series heard of a business plan? Did all of their mothers play motivational tapes when they were in the womb? This level of strained optimism makes it impossible to take the show seriously, but hey, let’s give it the same grade as the female idol show from the last post. Gender equality and all that.
Potential: 15%
Dorohedoro
Short Synopsis: A crocodile head has a human inside his mouth, and he goes around biting evil sorcerers, who are just trying to fill their evil quotas.
Lenlo’s review:
One of the weirdest things I’ve looked at so far, Dorohedoro had me going “wtf” from the start. Yet, part of that “wtf” has made me curious. Where is this bottled insanity going? Why is there a person inside the lizard? Why does everyone look like they just came off of a 16 year old’s first Punk Metal album design? No idea, but I kind of want to find out. Don’t get me wrong, the CGI is terrible and sticks out like a sore thumb. Dorohedoro is not a good looking show. Not by any stretch. But maybe it can pull a JoJo and keep me interested by sheer absurdity.
Potential: 40%
Amun’s review:
I’ve seen a few shows now that are using 80s/90s retro designs and style. I don’t like it. Also, this slum world just ends up looking dirty and dingy…I guess you can say that’s by design, but it makes the inevitable blood splatters just look overdone. I guess I’m marginally curious where this story goes, but honestly I haven’t seen enough content to keep me going. I guess the worlds and doors are neat, but the characters so far are meant for shock rather than sympathy. This is a pass from me.
Potential: 10%
Ishizoku Reviewers
Short Synopsis: This is ecchi. There’s also some kind of story and a hermaphrodite angel.
Mario’s review:
Here comes the trashiest show of this season. A human and an elf make it a mission to bang everything that moves, meet a bi-sexual loli angel and let him/her join the club: reviewing all the red-light district girls they have been sleeping with. Should I say any more? Oh yeah, the fact that the show makes a “hilarious” twist that other species find 50-yo call girl more attractive than old elf? I actually watched the whole thing so that I can inform you to avoid this show like the plague.
Potential: my mind hurts
Amun’s review:
This is atrocious. Like someone actually put significant effort into this. So instead of reviewing this, I want to list some shows that could use a second season, since these animators are clearly misdirected. Kamisama No Memou-chou. Hunter x Hunter. Angel Beats. Literally a brick wall.
Potential: No. Just no. It doesn’t have any.
Did someone mention THE WALL!?
Seriously though thanks for taking the hit on Reviewers. My god I would not have finished that.
I mean some things aren’t meant to be reviewed and taken at face value.
Merchandising, merchandising. That’s how the real money is made.
Also Angel Beats run out of steam 3 episodes before ending. I liked it but I don’t feel there was anything else to tell. (Maybe you mean reusing that setup).
I would take a spinoff or something else in the framework of the world, which I feel like had more potential.
If you’re stuck on the lousy visuals of Dorohedoro I’d recommend giving the manga a try, because the manga has great (though not traditionally beautiful) art: actually, the fact that the art is so detailed may be the reason why they’ve chosen to go all out on the CGI (aside from budget constraints, of course).
It’s definitely a very strange world, which will not be to everyone’s liking: JoJo is a good comparison for how bizarre everything is, but the world of Dorohedoro is much more twisted. It’s a dog-eat-dog world where everyone seems happy to kill people who are in their way (the characters are still likable in their own way, though), and the story is very heavy on black humor and has loads of gore. It’s a pretty unique story, and I quite liked it, but if you don’t have a click with the world and characters after a volume or so it’s probably just not your thing.
I’ll just stick to the manga for now, though. There’s little point in watching a mediocre adaptation when there’s excellent source material around. And it’s finished too, so you can binge through the whole thing in one go.
I read the first volume of Dorohedoro for the season preview and found it to be terribly intriguing, but also not my thing at all. I’m the sort of person who prefers to involve themselves in a story via the characters, especially at the outset; Dorohedoro’s priority in those early chapters was to submerge me in its stylish world and outlandish, loosely-connected concepts.
That being said, I certainly liked the anime’s premiere more than Lenlo/Amun – hearing the voices of the characters helped me connect to them. The backgrounds are fantastic, as you mentioned. It topped our winter 2020 poll by a landslide, despite being the weirdest show of the season. And then there’s its DIY sub-job: the premiere was translated by an individual who threw his/her script on nyaa just because he/she felt like it. I love that kind of shit.
For all these reasons, the show has earned my curiosity, even though I’m sure the manga is the better version. Is it a good idea for me to write about it? I dunno, but I think I might.
Well, the manga version is better for me, but it all depends on what you value more in a show. If voice acting helps to connect you to the characters and their world, the inferior art may be worth it for you. What works for me may not work for you. After all, what’s great art worth if it doesn’t make you feel anything? Besides, plenty of people do like the adaptation, so you’re hardly alone.
You could also write about it for the weekly roundup thingy, if you’re still doing that this time around. But yeah, I’m sure there’s an audience for it here. 🙂
That’s a good point – I think Mario intends to head up the weekly roundup posts this time. If we don’t cover Dorohedoro in full posts, it’ll certainly be mentioned there.
Does the dark humour from the manga survive in dororohedero’s adaptation or does the cgi ruin it?
I think the dark humor holds up reasonably well: it mostly comes from the situations and characters, so the clunky movements don’t ruin it imo. Aside from the CGI it’s not a terrible adaptation (the background art looks great, and the voice acting, soundtrack and pacing are all solid too), so I think the story will come out alright: it’s just that the manga does a far better job of bringing this bizarre world to life. But if you can tolerate the shoddy animation, it should be okay.
Having never read the manga, I think the dark humor worked fine. Will have to see as we go further in, but at the very least so far it has me hooked enough to give it a few more episodes to see just where the hell its going.
You had me at “maybe it can pull a Jojo”.
May as well watch that one atrocious episode of Ishizoku, too. Because Keijo!!!!!! is no longer around. Venturing into the darkness from time to time can really help you appreciate all the good things in life.
Nope. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.
Mistake.
See, now you understand why I let Mario and Amun take the hit for me there. I refused to watch Reviewers.