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elliotapricot · 3 years

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Reviewing My Anime 10/10's *Relatively* Spoiler-Free

Note: What I rank a 10/10 is very specific and obviously very subjective to my own. Something can only be a 10/10 if I already consider it a 9/10 AND I must have rewatched it. I am someone who typically does not rewatch/reread anything, unless it's something I truly absolutely enjoy. With that being said, because of the requirements, I only have 4 animes that I rank 10/10, and tbh only one of those animes would get that ranking from the general anime audience. The rest are SO SO SO specific to my particular tastes that I would be absolutely stunned if someone also had the same four as me, because the requirement is so specific. Imma make another post eventually for my 9/10's because I think that list makes a lot more sense for a general anime audience lmaooo.

Soooo, in order of least personal to most personal (although obviously they're all personal to me lol) we have:

1. Psycho-Pass

Recommended for people who: are really into that dark dystopian future society vibes, are fans of Ghost in the Shell, like detective/crime stories

Okay, for a few people, this one actually probably makes some sense. At the moment, it has an 8.37 on myanimelist which means this anime is super well liked. I've watched this anime twice, first the original and then the second time I watched the director's cut (yes that exists lol). Overall, I'm a huge fan of the entire Psycho-Pass anime series as a whole. I've watched all three seasons, as well as two of the movies. I didn't watch any of the Sinners of the System ones cuz tbh I literally couldn't find an english sub of that anywhere, it just doesn't exist lol. I think it's okay cuz the ratings for the Sinners of the System trio of movies seems meh. I've actually watched Psycho-Pass the Movie like three/four times LMAO but that's simply cuz a movie is obviously much quicker to watch than an entire anime season. Like just objectively, the Psycho Pass series as a whole is very inconsistent in quality due to the fact that it's all original, so they do technically just make up everything as they go lol. Season two is all right (I think it gets more hate than it should), three is good but season one by far is the absolute best in the entire series. I'd argue the movie is technically my absolute favorite out of the whole IP, but I actually give the movie an 8/10. The movie, because of being obviously way shorter, simply does not have the deep controversial and philosophical lines of thought that season one has. It lacks that extra depth that would make me put it anything higher than an 8. The two main characters have good chemistry as a crime-fighting duo and the main villain's rivalry/relationship with the male lead is super compelling. The female lead is meant to be relatively naive/more on the innocent side which works with the plot as it allows the show to naturally explain and give more exposition as to the actual world and rules of Psycho-Pass without having it seem so ham-fisted or just throwing info to the audience.

2. Violet Evergarden

Recommended for people who: cry to sad movies, like gorgeous animation, are very empathetic, like vignette-esque storytelling

All right if you even remotely consider yourself an avid anime fan, then this anime is probably also somewhere on your 10/10 list or at least an anime you consider to be "very good." That is, unless you are that very vocal minority who simply really just REALLY do not like this anime for some god forsaken reason. However, in my honest opinion, I think an anime like this just really doesn't sit well with ... how do I put this blunty ... people who do not give a fuck about other people or anyone else's feelings but their own. Basically, IF YOU ARE SELFISH, A NARCISSIST, EGOTISTICAL, OR ANY SORT OF COMBO OF THOSE THREE, YOU WILL NOT LIKE THIS ANIME. And if you do, you probably don't think you're any of those things. Because of the anime's very premise, I find it very difficult to see a very self-centered/heartless person particularly enjoying this anime. The whole premise of this anime is that the main character who, because of her upbringing, doesn't understand feelings/emotions, especially the concept of love, grows as a human and slowly begins to learn what love is. The show does this by showing multiple sets of characters meant to represent different types of love (romantic, familial, platonic, etc). The vocal minority of people I've seen give Violet Evergarden bad ratings all typically argue that although beautiful, the anime doesn't have any substance/doesn't really mean anything. If that's honestly all you got after watching the entire show, then you deadass just don't get it, and you probably will never ever get it. If you've seen or heard of Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song, than just know that these two animes are VERY very similar in vibe despite being technically different genres. However, I personally found the themes and concepts in Vivy are done much more masterfully in Violet Evergarden which I think is due to Vivy's heavier focus on a story-driven overarching plot/action as opposed to Violet Evergarden's focus more on emotional impact/an episodic format. I've watched the entire series and I've rewatched the main show twice. TBH you can probably skip the gaiden movie AKA the one set at the girl's academy it was highkey pointless. Compared to the opera episode they added as a "special", the gaiden movie was still good but I wish resources were dedicated to something that actually added to the story. ALSO YES I KNOW ITS A GAIDEN AKA A SIDE STORY AKA FILLER SO YES NO DUH IT DIDNT ADD ANYTHING, BUT STILL. As for the main show, I think I cried for three episodes (the one about the playwright/author I forgot lol, the mother and daughter, and the soldier). On my rewatch, I didn't cry but I still deeply cared for and related to the characters. Violet Evergarden is a beautiful anime with a beautiful story.

3. ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu Ka

Recommended for people who: like bread and bakeries, don't mind a very chill and slow-paced story, like stories about political intrigue and hidden agendas

Based on a relatively short manga, ACCA: 13 follows the main character Jean Otus as he performs his job of auditing the 13 districts of his country Dowa, while rumors and politics brew in the background that threaten to entangle Jean into a complicated plot. To be honest, I think properly reviewing this anime is impossible for me, because I just can't really explain the vibes of this anime besides "chill" and "intriguing." I think trying to explain anything more than the basic premise I just wrote would spoil a lot of what ACCA is, because it's plot is actually relatively quite simple and straightforward. Compared to Psycho-Pass which has a relatively good cult following, and Violet Evergarden which is universally praised, ACCA is an anime that I've yet to personally meet anyone who has ever even heard of it LMAOO. And almost everyone I know watches anime, so that's saying something oof. ACCA is made by Madhouse, which if you don't know, is a super well known anime studio, producing big hits such as Death Note, Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man, etc. That's why I'm surprised that ACCA has flown just SO under the radar, but that may be due to the overalls nature of the anime itself. ACCA is an anime where all the characters hold their card close and no one seems to really share their real thoughts. One main criticism the anime has is the lack of deeper connections to characters and that for a main character, Jean Otus is very bland. To be honest, I think that's a very fair criticism and I can understand why this would prevent people from rating this anime higher than an 8 or 7. Due to the very nature of the anime and its plot, I do agree that there is a huge cast of colorful characters that we unfortunately don't really get to know more about. To be honest though, I don't mind this because I feel that's honestly quite realistic, especially factoring in Jean's job. All these places he's going and all these people he's meeting, it's literally just his job. He's not on vacation, these people aren't his friends, so the anime has no real reason to dwell much longer on places past its specific episode. Just like in real life, you encounter so many people and go past so many places that you probably won't ever see again. So for me personally, I didn't mind that the anime didn't explicitly show much about the backstories or lives of the cast, save for the very main characters (as their backstories were plot relevant). I think as viewers of not simply an anime, but a whole other world, I think it should be satisfactory to inherently understand that these are whole "people" who have entire lives that we are not exactly privy to. So although admittedly our understanding of many of the characters was all around quite shallow, I think that works for the scope of the anime, which was relatively simple and focused on just Jean living his life and the political plot stirring in the background until it was brought forward in the second half of the anime. Also I love Jean Otus. I actually completely absolutely adore him. He is literally my profile pic for myanimelist LMAO. I think calling him "bland" is fair from other people's perspectives, especially as the supposed main character of an ANIME, but I feel that if ACCA was in a different format like a novel, I think his personality would have been less criticized. Like I said, I love him soo much. I don't find him bland at all, but actually very interesting and highkey attractive LOL (if only he'd quit smoking but it's part of his charm 😞). Yes for an anime "protagonist," he is quite underwhelming especially compared to others, but I think that makes him very charming!!! Like all he wants to do is just chill, vibe, and do his job lmaooo. I think as a person, he’s very charismatic, and in the world of ACCA the rest of the characters see that as well. Because like, if he really were such a bland person, why would so many people like him and actually trust him lol? As for why it’s technically my favorite anime of all time (my ultimate one is a movie), I can’t give super detailed reasons why to be honest. I just really like the overall vibes of the anime itself, and I think the anime is just super unique and original. I’ve watched a ton of anime over the years, but I’ve genuinely seen nothing like ACCA in the slightest. I mean, just look at the recommended animes on the myanimelist. The recommended animes are all stuff I’ve also personally really liked (like fugou keiji unlimited and the great pretender) but yeah there’s just truly nothing that’s close to what ACCA is, and because of that, it reminds my absolute favorite anime show. I’ve seen the dub and the sub, even though I am a vehement dub hater lmaooo (except for very few circumstances, and this also applies to all non-English media, not just anime). There was only one thing in the entire show that slightly confused me/ seemed slightly unbelievable and I won’t spoil but it had something to do with the overall timeline of some events, but it doesn’t detract from the story at all. Oh and the art style! I really love the art style of the anime. It stays pretty true to the manga, but is also just an overall kind of art style I really like. I really enjoy the more like 2d/flat/drawn art style versus really clean and really detailed stuff, and I’m typically not a big fan of very obvious use of CGI (unless done tastefully like in Demon Slayer). All the backgrounds in ACCA have this painted/drawn style and the anime itself has this like muted(?) filter over it that makes the anime seem like someone’s drawings just put up on display in a way that’s really refreshing and nice. I highly recommend this story for anyone who wants a breath of fresh air and to get away from the typical action-packed high energy of big name anime.

4. From Up on Poppy Hill

Imma make a whole separate post JUST for this movie so I can explain why I love this movie so so much. And honestly, Imma need a whole separate post in the first place to address the elephant in the room when it comes to this movie (if you’ve seen it, then you know what I’m talking about). And if you’ve haven’t seen the movie, maybe you’ve heard about one of its controversial themes. I’m not gonna say what it is, cuz I KNOW it’ll be super off-putting for a lot of people, but please omg just hear me out. I just love this movie so so much. I’ve seen it like 7 times and counting. I have it downloaded on my computer and on a flash drive. I’ve watched the sub AND the dub however I’ve stopped watching the dub because it makes me sad every time I hear Shun’s voice actor ;-; This movie is legit an honest-to-god comfort movie for me that I could watch over and over and I’ll fall in love with it again each and every time. And once again IMMA MAKE A WHOLE SEPARATE POST BECAUSE I SWEAR PEOPLE ARE GONNA BE LIKE “Yo ain’t this the movie with the -----” and it’s like PLEASE LET ME EXPLAIN. The vibes of this movie, the themes it addresses (yes even THAT theme), the music, the art, the characters, is perfectly presented in a way that I will never stop watching this movie. The only other film that has come close to the amount of times I’ve watched From Up on Poppy Hill would be Legally Blonde lmaooooo.

#anime #anime movie #from up on poppy hill #psycho pass #acca: 13-ku kansatsu ka #violet evergarden #anime review #myanimelist

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ais-n · 7 years

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Hello! I love love love ICOS and was wondering if I could ask a few questions. Namely, what were yours & Santino's inspirations for the series? For example, the Neo-Tokyo setting in Akira strongly reminded me of ICOS, but that could be my own perception of the world in ICOS. Were there any books, movies, anime, manga, etc, that helped to inspire ICOS?

Aww, thank you! I’m happy you like it!

As for inspiration... hmm, I’m trying to think. Honestly, we didn’t really have a specific inspiration from what I can recall. I think a lot of things were just what made sense to us or sounded like fun, and then otherwise inspiration or ideas leached together from lots of sources or everyday living and we put it in from there. Sometimes it was real life stuff, sometimes it was maybe just watching shows and thinking, “That could be cool.”

I have examples beneath the cut of things that either inspired us in parts or else ended up having some cool similarities even if we thought of them separately, but one thing I did want to mention is I’m always on the lookout for characters in shows or movies who could be a nice media representation of ICoS characters. I had started compiling some ideas of that a few years ago and found the link in case you are curious or bored:

ICoS character inspirations: (note, not that the ICoS characters were inspired by these characters, but that these characters seem like cool representations of ICoS characters -- i probably should have said ICoS character representations instead of inspirations, come to think of it...) Anyway that’s here: https://aisness.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/icos-character-inspirations/

And here are some adorable baby Boyd representations from Criminal Minds: https://aisness.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/baby-boyd/

Inspiration examples below!

For example, I used to love the hell out of Fringe and I watched it every week. One episode they had this whole thing about how this one character was kidnapped and the way they found out where they were held or where stuff was happening was by finding out that there was an excessive amount of electricity that was being used in a seemingly abandoned warehouse. Also, that character wasn’t content to just sit there waiting to be rescued; they tried to escape but couldn’t due to reasons, but that came up later in the episode. I liked that it didn’t diminish the character’s strength even in being captured but it also didn’t make it like suddenly they were superhuman and could do anything. Then, completely separately from that and probably years apart, I was doing research on human experimentation and watched things like the documentary Philosophy of a Knife and did a lot of research on Unit 731, and I got some ideas from that. Also completely separately from that and years apart, I’ve always been interested in psychology and psychiatry and I’d also read the book Rape of the Mind by Dr. Joost A.M. Meerloo which is a book from 1956 that talks about brainwashing of POWs and also whether or not brainwashing actually exists in reality or if it’s something else that’s happening with similar results. Plus I’ve done lots of research totally separately from all of that for trafficking etc.

All those things coalesced and then changed into inspiration for a particular situation that shows up later in the series that I don’t want to go into specifics of for spoilers for people who are earlier in the series, but you might know immediately what I’m thinking about. And if not and if you want me to specify with spoilers just let me know and I can do so behind a cut :)

(PS: Philosophy of a Knife is violent as fucking hell--seriously, seriously graphic. Do not watch it if you are faint of heart. I say this so no poor soul is like “Oh yeah Ais mentioned something about this maybe I’ll watch it! :D” and then is traumatized for life. They went all out on it. It’s actually kind of controversial because of that...)

Then there was other inspiration like sometimes I would dream about something and then wake up and be like, “Oh hey, cool plot idea!” or we would just think through what is likely to happen for that character based on their story line or their personality or human nature or etc and it developed from there.

I would say probably the closest thing to ICoS I know of for a series is La Femme Nikita, specifically the TV show that was on 1997-2001. I had actually never seen it or possibly even heard of it when we started writing ICoS -- I didn’t see the first couple of seasons until years into us writing ICoS. Santino had seen it years prior, iirc, but he hadn’t thought of it for a while. Anyway there are some interesting similarities between ICoS and LFN, a lot of which developed separately and was not inspired by LFN because I hadn’t even seen it so I knew nothing of it and I don’t know Santino’s inspiration or not but we decided things together so I know there are definitely a number of things I suggested with no knowledge of LFN.

The one thing I know that was inspired by LFN was the term ‘valentine’ which Santino suggested and which I think he got from LFN, but I think everything else is pretty coincidental, which makes sense because they’re such similar themes that there’s bound to be overlap in ideas. What was really interesting to me was when I did finally watch it, I was like, “Hey!! Michael is how I imagine early Boyd to be!!” in terms of his seeming lack of emotion, the way he has such minimal facial expressions and intonation, the way he seems so cold and sometimes a bit ruthless but then other times is bad ass. But Michael is like what Fade-level Agent Boyd would be in skills but with early Evenfall Boyd personality. Anyway, that was super exciting finding someone who represented that minimal emotion I imagined. (Also there’s a character in an anime who fights like how I imagined Fade Agent Boyd fights... I forgot the anime but I can track it down if you want)

You should totally watch that TV show if you haven’t. I never finished it but I need to ^^;; I think I saw through Season 2, maaaaybe s3?, but I never watched all of it and always meant to. I liked what I saw of it from what I recall but I have no idea about how it ended. (I’m a spoilerphobe) I also haven’t seen the original movie it was based on (I don’t think? uggh can’t remember) and I definitely haven’t seen the reboot they did more recently. No idea how much ICoS and those LFNs are similar but the 1997 tv show might be fun for ICoS fans to watch, just keeping in mind it has all the cheesiness of late 90′s/early 2000′s shows lol

I guess the last thing I’d say is I’m generally always inspired in terms of storytelling by my absolute favorite series ever, One Piece by Eiichiro Oda. The layering of his storytelling is masterfully done, and I also really love as a reader/viewer the way he can make me fucking bawl my eyes out and then a page or two later burst out laughing. I’ve always really valued the depth and range of emotions he elicits in his story, and the way he layers super minute details that have massive impact later on the plot, interwoven with the usual character development and on-page normal plot development, so that when you’re reading the first time there’s plenty of interest but that series also makes a phenomenal 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 20 billionth reread, because I swear every time I reread I notice new things I never noticed before because I didn’t have enough information about that plot.

I love to do the same thing in writing anything I have a hand in--for any sort of significant story at all, I don’t like to write for the first read; I like to write for the second, third, fourth reread. I mean obviously it needs to be interesting enough the first time around, but I personally like to add little details or character development or whatever which is more evident the second or more time of reading when you know everything you need to know, so when you go back to the start you can be like “OHHH! So THAT’S why--!” I got to do that a bit in ICoS but I’m going even more crazy with that in the book I’m working on now independently, because I am a nerd and it’s super fun to me. But anyway that way of writing a story over the course of the entire series rather than writing it solely book by book is something that definitely inspired me in writing Boyd for all of ICoS and all of my characters in it, and I don’t know what inspirations Santino has but whatever has inspired him also complements that inspiration of mine nicely, so that we both ended up being interested in writing that longer-form story built by shorters stories in between, rather than doing stories book by book with transitions in between but less of an overarching arc. If that makes sense? Hopefully it does.

Also we had made Sin and Boyd and some other characters as RPG characters in separate RPGs so I think we pulled some of that stuff over too, so in a way the original characters they were in those original other worlds probably gave some inspiration for their initial personalities.

btw, Neo-Tokyo in Akira is really interesting as a connection you made in your mind! I haven’t watched Akira in foreverrrrr so I can’t recall it well enough to be able to say either way but my memory of it makes sense for why you thought of that, so that’s cool! I should watch Akira again, or maybe it read it this time... Thinking of Akira is making me nostalgic for all those series that are older but still great, like now I want to watch again Cowboy Bebop, or Trigun, or even Yami no Matsuei, or... Oh actually! Totally unrelated but speaking of! Recently I found the whole series for Kare Kano (Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou/His and Her Circumstances) and omggggg having that sitting on my shelf without me watching it all over again is making me diiiiieeeeeee I’m dyingggggggg but I know I’ll get super into it again for nostalgia’s sake so I’m trying to make myself hold off until I can devote time to it.

Wow I rambled like fuck in this, sorry XD I guess the tl;dr is it was getting bits of ideas or inspiration from random or various places and then other things just kind of developing naturally in our minds, and it all came together into the monster that is ICoS XD

#ask ais #icos #in the company of shadows #rambling like fuck #jfc #carneliane

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