YUREI DECO
Short Synopsis: An excitable teenage girl shirks her responsibilities to chase a camouflaged hacker around a digitally-augmented city.
Wooper: I had some hopes for this series, given my fondness for director Shimoyama’s previous work, but this premiere dashed most of them. The long and short of it is that Yurei Deco feels undercooked, both in setting and concept. First, the setting: the plan to design a grayish-brown city composed entirely of right angles and slap brightly-colored shapes on top of it makes sense on paper. It’s likely meant to portray the superficiality of AR tech; take away the fancy holograms and all-important “Love” readings and you’re left with a pretty unexciting place to live. In practice, though, Yurei Deco ends up looking pretty unexciting itself, as the geometry of its city feels so oppressive that no amount of digital color can distract your eye. There’s a parkour scene near the end of this episode that served as a perfect opportunity to show off the landscape of Tom Sawyer (yes, the city is called Tom Sawyer), but it ended up exposing its plainness instead. As for the series’ concept, I do like the idea of a character’s malfunctioning eye implant giving them the ability to perceive invisible objects. Beyond that, however, the fixation on “Love” (think social media) and the main character’s obsession with a hacker who resets Love feel almost like relics in our post-Black Mirror age. We haven’t met all the secondary characters yet, so I’ll stick around until that happens – maybe they’ll breathe a little originality into what used to be one of my top picks for this season.
Potential: 25%
Amun: Yurei Deco is off to a weird start – but not a horrid one. I’m definitely reminded a bit of the feeling (if not the form) from ID:Invaded – worlds within worlds where your eyes are unreliable narrators for reality. I don’t hate the premise of the AR dystopian future, and the environment’s nods to 2D games are a fun Easter egg. I don’t really love the character designs; they’re basically watered down Gorillaz knock-offs (I didn’t even realize that was a girl until they used her pronouns halfway through). The setting, as Wooper said, is plain, but to me that’s by design and highlights the cheap neon paint over a boring world. The animation isn’t the strongest, but if the story goes to interesting places, I’m down to try this – definitely not the worst premiere of the season. Ceiling: Deca-Dence. Floor: completely forgettable.
Potential: 45%
My Isekai Life: I Gained a Second Character Class and Became the Strongest Sage in the World!
Short Synopsis: A real-world programmer protects a medieval town from monsters with the help of his slime companions.
Amun: Oh boy, another isekai (this season has so many shows that literally have “isekai” in the name that it’s really hard to keep track). Let’s see here…ah, it’s a slime one. You know what, I like slime isekais. From the great Rimura to I’ve been killing slimes for 300 years, I’ve enjoyed them all to varying degrees. And My Isekai Life looks to follow suit – albeit towards the lower end of the enjoyment spectrum. We have our standard lead, who looks to be doing some kind of spell programming that parallels his past life’s occupation….yawn. More interesting are his familiars, which include the slimes, a humanoid dryad and, the likely comedic relief, scaredy-cat wolf. The big set piece battle isn’t the best animation I’ve ever seen…okay, I’d call it just barely passable. But the world seems fun, we have a secret cult conspiracy, and hey – all the little individualized slimes are pretty cute. My biggest concern is that this show will try to take itself too seriously and think it has a real plot. As long as it stays light hearted and doesn’t visually fall off a cliff – what’s wrong with a little slime fun this season?
Potential: 60%
Wooper: My Isekai Life debuted with two episodes at once, but I only had the heart to watch the first, which was full of magic, monsters, and dialogue intended to flatter the awesome main character. Yes, it’s another entry in anime’s most infamous subgenre, and it doesn’t appear to offer much that bigger titles haven’t already covered: a cape-wearing protagonist (Yuuji) with severe bedhead, pop-up menus for magical attacks, a wolf companion used primarily for transport, HP and MP stats, etc. The show’s big selling point seems to be its abundance of friendly blue slimes, each of whom are voiced by different seiyuu attempting to give identical performances, which doesn’t seem like the best use of their time or talent – but I digress. Slimes aren’t exactly new in Japanese fantasy works, but these ones increase Yuuji’s inventory space and act as conduits for his magical powers, at least one of which probably counts as an innovation. Their master is significantly less interesting, being a stoic former programmer with incredible mage abilities whose goals are to protect people and get stronger and now I’m asleep. I sort of appreciate that the anime jumped right into the action instead of going into pointless detail about how he came to reside in this new world, how he acquired his powers, etc. That’s usually the worst part of these shows, but it’s not like My Isekai Life excels due to its absence – it’s still stuck with a boring premise, a recycled setting, and an animation team that struggles to do anything apart from making Yuuji’s cape flap in the wind.
Potential: 10%
Classroom of the Elite S2
Short Synopsis: Psychological games abound on a cruise ship coming back from last season’s island test (which everyone totally remembers).
Mario: It’s been awhile, Elite. I blogged it back in 2017 when it first aired and I was mixed on it at best. What I found is that the show tries to sound smarter than it actually is, with all the elaborate sets of rules that somehow get bent for the MC’s convenience. The second season kicks things into gear immediately with another test, albeit this time the test mixes different classes together. It can take a bit of time to become familiar with the huge cast again, but so far I am intrigued just to see how they play out this test. Sadly I can’t say the same about the characters as none of them, except for our MC, have enough time to settle in. And there’s already some contrived drama (the picture-taking scene) so it’s best that I watch it with tempered expectations.
Potential: 30%
Amun: Right…I very vaguely remember this show. What I do remember now is how little I cared by the end of it. We have the dead fish-eyed hero, calmly calculating and formulating an underhanded plan to help out his harem and his misfit class. The test itself is almost interesting (as I remember the island competition to be), but it’s just too drawn out to be fun. There’s just way too many moving parts and people – I can barely remember the main two, and it looks like this season’s focusing on a different girl? It’s just too much talking for one show – the focus is always on the people, but the setting is pretty bland too. I also remember how dumb the Latin quotes are at the beginning, but maybe I’m just not cut out to be in the Classroom of the Elite. That’s fine by me – I’ll just be here in the DanMachi waiting room.
Potential: 1%
I wonder why My Isekai Life aired two episodes instead of one, and I think it’s because episode 2 is so fucking boring since it goes through all of the dull cliches and exposition when explaining Yuuji’s backstory and introducing the start of the inevitable harem. That’s probably why they chose to structure the first episode in the way they did (all action) to hopefully draw people in instead of bore them to tears.
I disagree on Elite. Interestingly, on MAL the show seems to be a success already. I dont know how S2 will end up production wise, but this work (both anime and LN) do not ‘try to sound smarter than it actually is’. Yes the rules are always overcomplicated, but that’s also to bolster the social dynamics aspect of the system. In this regard the tests are basically social experiments. The smarts of the show comes from the social commentaries. Also, all characters behave organically and have motives.
Its a microcosm of real life. For me this is spiritual successor of SNAFU. But unlike SNAFU post S1, the drama in Youkoso is entertainment (for the viewer who watches from above) – it is quick and cruel – you either raise up to the occasion or you die (socially). Watching these broken characters fight for their lives to succeed in zero-sum society is more fun than 99% of the crap put out nowadays. Like Yurei… Sry, not sry. It was bad. Anyway…
The Youkoso MC is obviously not your overpowered MC, but a system-anomaly. The characters in Youkoso are deconstructions. Social bee Karuizawa is bullied and crying. The narcissist Keonji (normally a would be idol) is hated. The psychopath bitch Kushida is loved by everyone. The ultimate tsundere Horikita Suzune is social outcast. See the pattern? Suzune is the real life Yukinoshita/Senjougahara. And she isn’t MC love interest, not even main MC accomplice, not even fandom fav girl! Holy shit! How badass does a show has to be to demote Yukinoshita/Senjougahara waifu tier Suzune and have entire fandom jump on Karuizawa train? Well, a damn lot.
Which is why the MC is a layer above these characters. He has all the answers for them but cant help them – he is system-lvl being. He is akin to an ultimate product of the system/society’s inhuman nature, the ultimate system abuser/destroyer. But he must not fight the system directly, he is bound by the rules. If he we wasn’t stealthy, system would detect him and devour him. So he needs others to succeed, so he must prop them up – its perfect humbling scenario about how one cannot live without the other. MC is system fighting itself to evolve into different form than zero-sum devouring depression game (our society). I’ts all my theories of course, but I have no problem calling Youkoso multi-faceted, thats for sure.
As for Ayanokouji’s personality, he probably has schizoid personality disorder..
After Youkoso S1 ended I read the 10 or so LN volumes and it was great. Too bad anime butchered some character relationships, but S2 may just about figure out how to deal with that and succeed. Will see. For me the biggest issue right now is the chagne in OST. S3 is also announced so it looks like someone is trying to make this succeed, and I believe on paper this franchise should be a major success. As I said Youkoso captures spirit of SNAFU S1 perfectly, and goes all out. For me Youkoso is all I could ever want in a post SNAFU world.
I feel that SNAFU gives a very different vibe. Elite takes itself way too seriously, where SNAFU could lighten up a bit. Ayanokouji’s a sociopath too – which is fine for the story, but it’s hard to relate (somewhat by definition).
I’m a much bigger fan of SNAFU than Elite.
Elite is just unpleasant
Most of the cast ate simply unlikeable and not sympathetic enough for me to care about any of them. The fact is is another stupid light novel adaptation doesn’t help. Yuri at least has the potential to get better especially since it is more light hearted and fun.