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I don't like shows that disrespect my time. I watched this with a couple amateur critic friends of mine and we all had the same takeaway: why didn't they make this a feature? The sad fact is we all knew why, there's simply more money is episodic streaming these days. What a shame.

It's impossible to watch this show without thinking about everything I'd cut out. Personally, I'd cut a third of it, bare minimum. The number of times they repeat themselves in this show is infuriating. We spend so much time talking about people doing things that are kinda creepy, alluding to people doing something worse eventually, cutting to someone saying "he seemed like a totally normal guy... then it got weird", then cutting to the same god damned picture of the guy for a fourth time, and then cutting to three years prior and doing it all over again. It drives me nuts waiting for this show to actually go somewhere, and it takes it's sweet, sweet time getting there. Take a look at a mini series that's edited efficiently and professionally like Leaving Neverland and Quiet on Set looks like a school project by comparison. This series is stretched criminally thin, like the script was a highschool essay and the poor kid realized too late that their chosen subject wasn't substantive enough to meet the minimum word count, and the editor didn't leave a single thing on the cutting room floor.

This is what a documentary that lives on fluff looks like, and I don't recommend it. Watch a video essay instead. Unlike this series, a video essay will respect your time.

I gave this film a 6 the first time I saw it, but I'm watching it for the third time, now, and I ahve to ask myself "Why do I keep watching this movie?" The plot seems relatively simple, at times. Deaf girl, bully, romance and tragedy ensues. But I always come back. The music, personally, is the best aspect of this film. Kensike Ushio is brilliant, and I listen to their music regularly. But the story, as simple as it is, always makes me feel something. I always feel the same thing, but it's the feeling itself that has me coming back this third time. A Silent Voice is about the innocent cruelty of youth, the way we look back at ourselves and see foolishness, and the responsibility we have to correct our ignorance as adults. This movie is about learning compassion, learning to let people into your life, learning that all humans deserve love, and accepting that no matter how many mistakes you've made, it's never too late to change and never too late to make a difference. This movie always makes me cry.

Hopefully, other studios will see this series as proof that you CAN make a faithful adaptation of a video game that people will watch and enjoy. Resident Evil tried and failed, Halo tried and failed, Hitman tried and failed, Doom tried and failed, Max Payne tried and failed, but all of the studios behind those awful adaptations simply needed to RESPECT the source material. Throughout this series, I recognized and reveled in the shockingly accurate recreations of settings taken directly from the game, frequently exclaiming (to nobody but myself), "I REMEMBER THIS LEVEL!!!"

The Last Of Us proves that video games can be adapted into film and television without deviation and people will love it. You don't need to add subplots, you don't need to change significant plot points and characters, you just need to care about your source material, the same as any series or film based on a book. Video games can and often do have good stories, and even without the interactivity of a video game, those stories that people fell in love with can be fantastic in any medium. I pray that other studios will watch this series and realize that screwing with the stories their fans love isn't the way to succeed. THIS is the way to succeed: with love, faith, and reverence. The people have noticed, and now the studios will notice.

"Monte and his baby daughter are the last survivors of a damned and dangerous mission to the outer reaches of the solar system. They must now rely on each other to survive as they hurtle toward the oblivion of a black hole." That's the logline for High Life. The movie, however, is not about Monte and his daughter. The first act and denoument are, but the bulk of the movie is about the downfall of the crew and their mission, of which Monte and his daughter were the soul survivors. I gotta be honest, it's not fun to watch. High Life is a swing-and-a-miss, with a few good ideas that remained buried under a serious mess.

The movie begins with a very intriquing, even enticing first act, more or less following the logline (the baby, by the way, was incredible, as if she were a proper actor). This relatively clean and fascinating story falls apart violently, however, descending into a bizarre psychosexual thriller that never really felt necessary. For example, the sex machine room: why? Why did that happen? I am biased, here, because the first act had me excited for a movie that I would never receive, but it's not hard to watch this movie and say "no, I thought the 2nd act was great" because it wasn't. It was confusing, oddly predictable, and impressively unprovocative. On top of a sloppy story with a laughable, obligatory ending, the dialogue tends to be clunky, with performances that fail to compensate.

High Life is a very unique sci fi film, in the most literal of terms, and its mixed reviews are no challenge to understand. I love a movie with balls, that's not afraid to be controversial, but I'd rather not have those balls pressed against my nose.

This is not the sort of series I generally give a 5. Normally, this would be a 6 or a 7. The cinematography is competent, sometimes good. The production and art design is generally pretty good. The writing is more than adequate, it satisfies and more. The performances are probably the best part, they're actually very compelling; in fact, my curiosity tp see Evan Peters in this role is the only reason I gave Dahmer a shot. But, I digress: shows with above average quality normally get an above average rating from me, except in cases where the show had a damaging effect on the world (for example, the South Park episode that accidentally created gingerism), or which deal with sensitive subject matter insensitively and without a necessary level of tact.

Dahmer uses the story of Jeffrey Dahmer for a sensational story with a famous serial killer name brand for extra viewership, but the show never deals with or addresses the effects it might have on the living victims and family of the man himself. I didn't realize this when I started the show, and didn't think too research until halfway through, that Jeffrey Dahmer's parents may still be alive. His father is. I don't know about you, but having seen the series and it's portrayal of Lionel Dahmer, I don't like that one bit. The series never talked to the victims' relatives, either. That's my main issue, but it's a big one. I don't think that you could, in good conscience, make a biopic about a serial killer without talking to the people who live with that trauma every day. It's disrespectful.

As well, I think that the changes made to the true story were often morally questionable, such as the depiction of Steven Hicks' murder, which was made significantly less egregious and unjustifiable than the true story. It's not like they made it seem reasonable; but certainly less deranged and much more understandable given the context. I think that the gruesome and horrifying details this show occasionally decides to dance around would make an equally compelling story that the semi truth they choose to tell, and therefore I cannot see any good reason behind it. Even more egregious is the fictional depiction of Jeffrey Dahmer and Tony Hughes as having a reltionship, when in fact Tony was killed just like all the others: the night they met Jeffrey. I found this fabricated friendship between the two to be grossly inappropriate and wholly unnecessary. They could have invented a fake person, instead of distorting the image and life of a real human victim.

I have no doubt this story was made with the victims at it's heart, but many questionable choices were made that seem antithetical to that heart. As well, the show was kind of boring toward the end, so yeah. 5/10.

Hardcore Henry is an action film, and it shares most of the flaws that action films do, except for a gimmick: first person perspective. However, the creators of Hardcore Henry committed to that simple concept with a level of clarity that elevates the work and makes it truly unique.

What I find truly impressive is how much more real everything feels from a first person perspective. Every chase scene feels real, every gunfight, every visceral punch just looks and feels so right. Using a gopro for the entire film doesn't lend itself well to a beautiful image, but committing to such a concept anchors it in reality, and that's the important thing. As well, the main character is a mute, which immediately cals to mind the silent FPS protagonist, and allows the viewer to imprint upon them. It's fantastic.

I'm not going to talk about what doesn't work, because it's the same problems most action flicks have: it's unrealistic, it's goofy, it has too much music, and it's story isn't terribly well written or interesting. But it looks damn good, and it feels damn good, and that's all I care about. I wish there were more movies like this.

Jordan Peele has been a surprisingly talented director since his debut, and this film is as good as any fan would expect. Nope is a science fiction thriller, and the protrayal of the science fiction concepts therein is compelling, though not perfectly implemented if you think too hard about it. Overall, it's well performed, well shot, well written, blah blah blah Jordan Peele is a perfectly competent director, most of what he did is good. My main problems with this film were the lack of a denouement, a few moments that demand an unreasonable suspension of disbelief, and the unaddressed implications of the UFO phenomena portrayed. It's still a good film, but it's no Get Out.

Apocalypto is a thrilling and captivating film, and the only major blockbuster film about pre-Columbian Central America to date (at least the only one in which the natives don't speak English the whole time) which in itself is worth great praise. I wish there was a better film about the Mayan/Aztec empire, but there isn't. Unfortunately, this unique film only pays attention to history when it wants to.

There are virtually zero films of this calliber that are even remotely historically accurate depictions of the collapse of the Mayan empire, and Mel Gibson attempted to fill that void. However, he either couldn't distinguish the Mayan and Aztec empires or wanted to make a film about both simultaneously, and he merged the two with chronologically irreverence. Is Apocalypto about the collapse of the Mayan empire in the 10th century, is it about the mass human sacrifice committed by the Aztecs, or is it about first contact with the Spanish and the smallpox epidemic in the 16th century? It's about all of these things, out of convenience for the plot. It worked, though. I loved the plot and am particularly grateful for and enamored by its attempt to immerse its audience in an incredibly fascinating and unique yet poorly documented era of human history; however, it must be mentioned that making a film about a historical time and place that few people are properly educated about is a great responsibility. The sad truth is that many people watch period pieces like this and say "Oh, that's what it was like back then", and most of those people will remain misinformed for the rest of their lives. The fact that this film isn't entirely inaccurate is almost worse than if it were a clead falsehood, because it disguises the massive liberties that this film takes. A half truth is often a greater sin than a total lie for this very reason. I myself was guilty of watching this movie and not doing any research the first time I saw it, and I can't tell you how disappointing the truth was when I finally devoted due time to researching Mesoamerican history.

Also, if I may shoehorn this in, Apocalypto always comes off a tad racist while I'm watching it, in that it misrepresents the status quo and massively understates the technological prowess of the Mayan and Aztec Empires. Emphasis on "a tad", by the way: I do not think this film is racist, overall. Apocalypto actually made an effort to capture the Nahuatl language and cast actual descendants of the extinct culture being represented, which is far more than most big budget movies have ever attempted. That takes courage, and financial independance. Paramount wouldn't dare fund a movie like this, I'll tell you that.

I hope that somebody else has the balls to make a movie about the great pre-Columbian American empires at their height, and one that does more justice to their rich and fascinating history. I can't tell you how badly I want to see the great city of Tenochtitlan or the sprawling coastal cities of the Mayan empire on the silver screen. The great lengths of human accomplishment at the advent of written history is something I want to see in motion. If you watch this movie, please enjoy it, but know that it is a deviation from history.

Shows that are good for the whole family are very, very difficult. Most of them are great for children and terrible for everybody else. The very concept of the "family" genre is generally a false pretense. However, Avatar is truly a show for the whole family.

Very few episodes, if any, can be considered filler. The homage and love of Asian culture is evident and will certainly provoke educational questions in a young mind, and the theme and learning lesson in each episode is more or less directly stated, but restrained enough that any child can take something from it and few adults will be irritated by it.

The world building isn't perfect, but it's damn close. The viewer is consistently fed enough images of the greater world that it's inner workings are plenty without evoking endless questions. Oh, it will evoke questions: "Why din't they just make an ice bridge? Why doesn't the avatar just fly everybody away?" It'll happen, but unlike many fantastical series, it won't ruin your experience. For example, my question (as always, at this point) is why aren't there guns? Why is the fire nation, a nation that has access to incredibly advanced technology and machinery, still using trebuchets on their warships? There's no answer to that question, but unlike most shows, I easily forget this question. In general, everything works cohesively enough that it's easy for an unreasonably skeptical adult such as myself to forget their misgivings and enjoy the story.

Oh my gosh, the sound design? It's perfect. It's consistently perfect. It's no easy task to make the process of manipulating water, fire, sand, rock, and lightning sound natural, and this show does it flawlessly. The fact that few people even think about the sound design is a testament to how convincing it is.

The story is good. Actually, it's REALLY good. I don't even want to take the time to dive deeply, it's just really good. The characters are great, the visual storytelling is superb. It takes you back to a time when animators drew everything. Sure, there's plenty of 3D effects and assets to help out, but this show feels genuine and innately human in its animation style. I can feel the time that every frame took, and that's important.

Overall, as far as American TV-Y7 rated shows go, this and Spongebob Squarepants have to be the best. Seriously. Give it your time, you won't be disappointed.

Rest assured, all ye skeptics of M. Night's most recent film, Old, for you were right again... (suspense sound effect) it's bad.

Before I explain the core problem with this film, I am compelled to harp on one of my greatest filmmaking pet peeves: suspense sound effects. Some call it score, but I'm too pretentious to call such a blemish on the film industry anything but sound effects. Old is full of suspense sound effects, and not only do these uninspired sounds trample any chance of organic tension by loudly insisting that the viewer "be in suspense", they also usually lead up to a reveal that is anything but surprising. The level of predictability of this film, especially the first hour, is impressive. There's a point in Old where Mid-sized Sedan (trigger warning for victims of the Visit: he's a rapper) checks on a corpse the group recently discovered and is horrified by what he finds under the towel. Following a suspenseful sting and a big long suspense sound effect, it is revealed that... the corpse got older. Am I being punked? Is this a prank? If I'm correct, everything that should be surprising you in the first hour of this film are more or less revealed by the trailer, so who are these suspense sound effects for? Who is in suspense during these moments? Can I possibly be this jaded?

This film is yet another case of a simple concept, limitless in it's potential, explored with a tragic lack of imagination, only touching a handful of the fascinating concepts and conflicts that would naturally occur if a group of people found themselves rapidly aging and unable to escape. The only bold choice made was having two underage characters engage in unwitting intercourse and a rapid pregnancy. Every other choice is obvious, uninteresting, and/or totally unnecessary. Particularly unnecessary is the plot of the doctor, who's experiencing expeditious mental decay, apparently schizophrenia. I, ever the optimist, believed he had Alzheimers, and contrary to my expectations, this plight did not play out naturally, evoking fascinating existential questions along the way and immediately making the doctor the most interesting character, he just turns into a violent crazy people and stabs people. Why? Why in a story about people rapidly aging to death over the course of a day, do we need a murderer to drive the plot forward? People are dying NATURALLY, and it's the only interesting thing about the story! IT'S THE WHOLE POINT! Rather than exploring fascinating ideas, Old spends most of its fleeting time poorly explaining how the rapid aging works and why they can't escape (a phenomenon that cannot and should not be explained) and killing off characters one by one, like the horror movie it desperately wants to be, in painfully obvious ways.

Rather than being a grand rumination on the inevitable process of death, Old is much more interested in death itself, particularly suspenseful and thrilling deaths. In fact, the theme M. Night seems focussed on is the importance of "staying in the present", a theme he brushes shoulders with in the form of on-the-nose dialogue, but never makes a real point. Old makes no claims, despite being designed to, and the shoddy execution of the premise, poisoned by an awful script, is to blame. Speaking of which, the ending is about as basic as it gets. Our protagonists, the two children, escape, thanks to the boy's conveniently sudden revelation that a note he received in the first act contained a clue. They swim through coral (why not) and escape the "special minerals" that caused the rapid aging, then a cop we briefly met an hour ago gets the bad guys and they all fly away in a helicopter into the sunset. So, what's the point? Is the point really that we should live in the present more, or did I make that up? I don't see any other points being made, except that forcing people to undergo rapid aging for the world's most impatient scientists' research is bad? Sure, guess so. Thanks for aging me another hour and forty nine minutes, M. Night. You so effortlessly disappoint that the word is merely a formality at this point.

On an almost positive note, the cinematography is of note (the only thing of note, frankly). There are a lot of interesting, even memorable shots; personally, I love some of the extreme closeups that frame only a character's eye and 1/3 of their face, and I thought that the way the camera expressed degrading vision and hearing was clear and compelling. Although there are a lot of successful shots, the majority of them feel terribly unclear, as if unsure of their own purpose. Well, if the story doesn't want to give me an existential quandary, I'm glad that the camera team got one. There's a lot of unmotivated camera movement in Old, and I've seen lots of great unmotivated camerawork, but this isn't one of those movies. The unmotivated shots are consistently counterproductive in execution, frequently leaving the audience with nothing clear or important to look at, as if the the only note the director gave the camera operator was "go nuts". There are a lot of shots that are framed poorly on purpose, but the purpose is generally lost on me or overused to the extent that any and all meaning is lost. Every long arc or 360 pan is jarring and seemingly improvised; I never know what I'm supposed to be looking at, like I'm watching a bad take. I would best sum up Old's cinematography as deliberately yet erroneously confusing. I hope they had fun with all these unusual shots, because they aren't fun to watch. That's hard to admit for me, a man with unconditional love for bizarre camerawork.

The performances are an odd case, here: some of it is stellar, and some of it is surprisingly bad. Every third actor is stiff as a board, and it's always really astounding that they made it into such a big budget production. Most of my favorite characters are this way (namely Jarin and the cop), and it's really unfortunate. If I may drop one out of place detail before I wrap this up, the characters in Old age in chunks, in sudden time advancements, seemingly one at a time (the children suddenly age 5 years, then on of them ages another 5 while the other doesn't age at all, etc.) rather than everybody progressively and sinultaneously as the plot insists is the case. The absence of a smooth aging process in a film all about rapid aging is distracting. I imagine it's really difficult to account and maintain continuity for such a concept, but I wish they put more effort into it.

Old's disappointing story, combined with a mixture of phenomenal or awful acting, generic score, and occasionally successful cinematography equate to a bad experience for me. A lot of people will like it, though. This movie will be entertaining to the average person, but to any of you who have ever spent this long talking about why you didn't like a movie, this film will likely leave you feeling artistically starved.

I'm only going to talk about one thing, and that's the sound design. The mix is so awful, so inconsistent and distracting that I had to look it up. I thought I was doing something wrong, but it turns out that director Michael Mann micromanaged the sound mix, and it really shows. Sound effects are always way too loud, the dialogue is usually too low, and every single layer seems to change volume at will, and if you want to hear any of the dialogue without being deafened by the gunfire, you better keep your hand on that volume button at all times. Just awful.

The rest if the movie's good. Not great, but decent.

I was extremely surprised to find out that Francis Ford Coppola directed this film, not because it's below the standards I expect from him, but because it is really well directed. It's rare that a movie can be so well directed and so bad at the same time. It's hard to pinpoint the exact problem here, until you realize it's all in the writing: moreover, the story. Robin Williams does everything he can for this character, and the story does not reciprocate. The entire cast is a success, in fact. I generally loathe child actors, but these ones are almost believable; Jennifer Lopez nailed a lot of nuanced beats and really surprised me; Bill Cosby was incredibly endearing, despite all of his horrible crimes. The shots and storytelling behind the camera, save for a couple janky inserts, is effective. Yeah, the more I think about it, the clearer this case of bad writing becomes. Not a bad premise, but the execution is hit or miss at best and the ending is woefully dissatisfying. All I needed to know is what he wrote for that essay, but we didn't get it. What a shame.

There is something uniquely charming about predicitve science fiction films: while there are often many surprising paralleled to the fictional world and modern day, there are just as many hilarious blunders. I don't know about you, seeing wealthy people in the year 2022 playing Asteroids and on a behemoth of a machine with a disproportionateely tiny screen simply puts a smile on my face. And yet, it does not remove me from the world, but better informs me of the world through the context and time period of the film's production. "We're playing Asteroids in 2022?" I say, in awe. "What a world we are living in." 1973's Soylent Green, adapted from the 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! By the phenomenally named Harry Harrison, paints a picture of a dystopian future where famine and overpopulation defined a generation in one if the densest cities on planet Earth: New York City. I think it paints this picture well.

The characters are engaging, and their struggles are relatable. In particular, Thorn and Roth's relationship is heartwarming and effectively understated. The essence of stageplay in the dialogue and intimate character moments do the tone and story of Soylent Green many favors. The camera seems most comfortable in wide shots in this film. Not my favorite style, but typical of the era.

The sound design was surprisingly mediocre: this is most noticeable in the scoop scene, which features bizarrely sparse and illogical footstep sounds. In general, most scenes in this film feature has poor levelling, noticeably missing or out of sync footsteps and foley, or the absence of essential sounds: things like cloth foley, bodies thudding, etc. The sound in this film usually does the job, but it is noticeable more often than it should be.

Overall, Soylent Green seems to me a sci-fi classic. It makes a point and makes it well.

Review date: 2014.

Animation was ok, art was pretty good, soundtrack was very good, story was great, narrative was really great, characters were wonderul, and it was surprisingly original.

For an action-adventure story, this s*** was pretty damn good. It was a simple shoot 'em up type anime, but it wasn't a mindless one. This is how you do an action anime.

Review date: 2014

Animation was great, art was simple but unique, soundtrack was very good, story was very good (though not entirely original), narrative was really great, characters were fantastic.

First off, I loved that the females clearly have noses. They barely exist in the world of anime. Anyways, after having watched both the subbed and dubbed versions of Steins;Gate, I am thoroughly happy with almost everything about this series. A delightful set-up with lovable and dynamic characters, a wonderul soundtrack, many honest and even educational themes, a deep and evocative story, and a powerful narrative with great voice actors. But, to be honest, I've seen plenty of great anime that do those things. To me, the areas in which this anime truly shines beyond the rest is in it's perfection; it simply lacks error. I have always been a man who finds every little problem and every detail, analyzing them and using them to form a more detail-oriented opinion. However, I must say that throughout this entire anime, almost every question was answered and everything fit together without error. After watching it a second time, I saw there was one thing that wasn't explained, but I think I figured out the explanation myself, so it doesn't bother me much. When it comes to continuity, this anime is number one, especially when it comes to sci-fi, and even more especially when it comes to time travel sci-fi. This is the most well thought out and put together time travel story that I can remember seeing in my entire life.

Reciewed: 2011

Animation was great, art was wonderful, soundtrack was nostalgic, story was great, narrative was truly phenomenal, characters were really great, and it was very original.

I don't think I've ever seen a supernatural story that takes place during the prohibition, and I love it. The best quality of this anime is by far the narrative; the characters were perfect, the voice acting was exemplary, and the character development combined with the anachronism was spectacular. This anime has earned the closest rating to perfection that I've ever given and currently holds the title of both the best anime I've ever seen and of my favorite anime. Truly incredible.

Animation was phenomenal, art was very good, soundtrack was interesting, story was beyond impressive, narrative was good, characters were pretty good, and it was incredibly original.

This series told a cyberpunk story unlike any other I have experienced before. Though the anime's animation and narrative was pretty mediocre at times, the story was incredibly complex, detailed, and intellectually engaging. The movies had remarkable animation, especially for its time. Overall, the series was revolutionary and had an impact on the sci-fi industry the marks of which are evident to this day.

Incredible animation, beautiful art, fascinating cyberpunk narrative and action. Watch it. Watch it now.

Avoid the 2008 "2.0" version like the plague. Seriously.

Review Date: 2013

Haruhi Suzumiya = 7.8 "Uniquely Delightful"

animation was great, art was ok, soundtrack was mediocre but lovable, story was pretty great, the narrative was great, characters were good, and it was very yet inexplicably original.

The series was consistently fun and charming, telling a relatively unique supernatural/highschool story with metaphysical themes about perception and God with a silly and stretched yet truly intriguing premise, tying it all together in a way that I find hard to describe. A phenomenal series that currently holds the place of my second favorite anime, if we pretend season 2 never happened. I'd give it an 8, but season 2 was a piece of sh**, and I mean sh**. With the exception of season 2, it's more than likely I will be rewatching this series over and over again. Pure happiness.

"Berzerk: The Golden Age Arc I-III" = 7.9

It's not often that I find myself rooting for a man to slaughter people, for any reason. And yet, I never stopped rooting for Guts once. The Berzerk films sport a thoroughly engaging dark fantasy narrative, supported by entertaining and well animated action scenes. This series effortlessly glides between very funny and very serious, whichever it's trying to be at any given moment. The only real problem I have is that the dialogue can be really cheesy, clunky, if not simply detached from reality. Chalk it up to the translation, I suppose. Regardless, this film series is the sort of thing I show to people who think anime is silly, nothing but Dragon Balls and Narootoes, and it rarely fails to open minds to this huge world of animated cinema.

"Great Teacher Onizuka" (1999) = 7.6

You know, the problem with watching anime from 10+ years ago is that the Japanese voice actors are usually pretty bad, and the english dub is often just as bad. In this case, the dub was better (the voice acting was slightly better, and the translation was far superior to that of the english subtitled version).

So, GTO: the Great Teacher Onizuka. He definitely earned his title-with 43 episodes; he took his time, but still, he earned it. GTO is a great feel good anime: there's not a lot of thought provocation, or complex plot lines, or brilliant narrative, just a really fun, simple format that worked for 43 whole episodes, and definitely could've kept going. The best way I could convey my feelings about this anime would be with a silent, ear-to-ear smile and a playful shrug. GTO is a tentatively lighthearted, positively jovial, and unrelentingly playful anime that will surely put a smile on your face.

"Death Parade" (2015) = 8.7 Review date: 2017 Extremely light spoilers, no specific plot pointz

That was lovely. Death Parade presented a philosophy about the soul that impressed me deeply and evoked thought, which I find anime rarely do to me anymore. I'm used to discussions about the human soul being juvenile, overly fantastical, or simply unsophisticated, and I dread it as a theme in the general anime. Death Parade surprised me, though. It presented an idea about the meaning of life I had never considered; as it was put in the anime, life is "to suffer, yet stand firm" (ep.12). I never thought of life in that exact way, and I realize that I've probably never described life that well. In all the time I've spent discussing and pondering life and what it means to be alive, I've never been as on the nose as that quote.

Death Parade has much more to offer than its philosophy, though. Death Parade tells many stories in it's short, twelve episode run, but tells each one quite well. Some of them get pretty sappy and cliché, but for the most part, they still tugged at the heart strings. I must admit, at least one episode hit me with so many clichés at the end that they kind of lost me, but that's as bad as it ever got. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this experience. I cried twice, both times were incredibly cathartic, and the show concluded with a clean resolution, a realistic and fulfilling happy ending, and an open ending that makes a second season absolutely possible while still leaving the season conclusively enough that a continuation of the story isn't necessary. I should also note that the dub is great-especially Jamie Marchie, who played Chiyuki, she was fantastic. Oh, and the crying scene at the end? Marchie did that thing that people do when they begin crying while simultaneously talking and their voice sounds quite silly, and it added to the realism of the scene significantly. Great work with casting, Funimation, it's good to see you casting new people for once instead of the same five over and over again, as much as I like those five. Or used to. Anyway:

In summation, I am very satisfied with this viewing experience. Thank you, Madhouse.

"To suffer yet stand firm-that's what it is to live, isn't it?"

"Paprika" (film) = 7.5 Paprika is visually impressive, without a doubt, and I loved the soundtrack; otherwise, though, I found Paprika to be a bit mundane. I feely heart must be bumb to a quintessential element of this movie, because everybody loved it, yet I found it kinda meh; memorable, but not amazing. It was cute, but also childish in a way. It seemed like a weird mesh of adult and child themes, which didn't bother me much, but seemed to prevent me from getting as immersed as I normally would. Anyway, it was a good movie, but not a profound one. That's all I really have to say.

"Ergo Proxy" (2006) = 8.6 Very interesting show. My only real problem with Ergo Proxy is that the pacing is a bit outta whack. The plot advanced way, way too quickly in the period before Vincent left Rondo, taking a good six or seven episodes of content and mushing it into three. From there, the pace just got slower and slower. Occasionally, the plot would seem to jump very suddenly, only to reveal that whatever new plot seemed to have occurred was merely a hallucination or a dream or a god damn'd game show that remainex completely unexplained for the rest of the damn show. However, I prasie this series. It made me think and conveyed new ideas to me, which hasn't happened in far too long-not because of an anime, at least. Ergo Proxy made me further consider the concept of God, a sole creator, and the properties of such a being-his duty, his solitude, and his anguish-and the concept of creation itself. This is a very, very thoughtful story with an equal thoughtful theme, and I walk away from it with nothing but satisfaction and gratitude.

"The shadow knows. The shadow knows the price to pay and the fate of those who demand a god for a godless world."

5.8

This anime is a tough one for me to give a score, because it really just isn't my style, and that has affected my perception of it. I have a huge personal issue with the sloppy fantasy, especially a lazy magic system, and Fairy Tail, with oblivious prid, sports one of the laziest magic systems I've ever struggled to understand. This anime is not a failure, but I find it fails in many respects. My main gripe with this anime is it's use of idiocy and lawless, reasonless magic as a cheap plot device. I can't count how many times I almost put this series down and walked away because an incredibly contrived but tense plot came to a resolution at the hands of some magical something or other that came out of left field and had no explanation. It was frustrating. I wouldn't even call Fairy Tail's magic system soft, but rather a volatile liquid. Gaseous might be an even better descriptor. However, the anime does have a very unique charm, driven home with a stubborn theme of friendship through all. The folk-rock score adds to this charm quite well, without feeling overly cheesy. Every other aspect of this series-animation, art style, dialogue, etc.-is frankly only worthy of a passing grade.

If I may linger, I dislike how this anime refuses to kill anybody we would actually care about, and yet still has death scenes because they're fun. They have a whole death scene: every character expresses their grief, they run the happy memories montage, and then the character(s) who was supposed to die will just be miraculously A-okay, or whisked away by some magical whatever, without proper reason. They add new characters so damn fast, yet refuse to get rid of old ones.