bayan-rafeh92 Reviews

Oban Star-Racers (2006)

Show don't tell

[9/10 · 31 January 2015]

The premise of Oban Star-Racers is a simple one: Racing to save the world. The appeal of this show is not in it's premise, but in the execution.

The execution is by no means perfect. The editing is rather weird and the story is quite predictable at times, but the way the story is told is what keeps you there.

A lot of anime, even fan-favorites like Code Geass have the problem of an excessive need to have characters explain things. It ignores an important rule in any visual medium: show don't tell. It's rare to see this rule applied in an anime, even rarer to see it applied in an anime presumably intended for kids.

11 episodes in, Oban Star-Racers shows without telling. There is no music to tell you how to feel(if there is any I didn't notice it), and the explanation in it is very minimal sans the opening. The characters evolve through interacting with each other and through the progression of the plot, not by another character noticing the changes and explaining them through monologue. The dialog is natural for the most part, and the English voice acting is extremely well done.

The characters themselves are rather interesting, with a good back-stories and good development for the main characters. The side characters get a decent amount of development as well. They're not developed much, but enough so that they don't feel like cardboard cutouts. The animation is wonderful, with creative races that are rather unique hence not boring, The reason I don't want to give this show a full ten is because of the story is quite predictable and the editing is botched in some scenes, though it certainly has earned it's 9 stars for the excellent interactions between the characters and overall execution.

This is a must watch, especially for anime writers who could learn a thing or two about storytelling from this show.

The Future Diary (2011–2013)

Absolutely insane

[9/10 · 11 December 2013]

I still have no idea how to feel about this show. The hero is given a diary which can predict the future, and is thrown into a battle with 11 others where the last survivor becomes God.

This anime is different in that the main character is not equipped to handle the situation at all. In most shows, anime or otherwise, they never throw at the hero more than s/he can handle, no matter how ill equipped they seem at first. The hero here has no natural talent, nor is he given time to explore his power. From the start he is thrown into survival mode and makes most choices out of desperation, and even though it seems for a while in the middle of the show he has a handle on everything, he loses his grip and inevitably digs himself into a hole he can't climb out of.

The characters are insane, and the relationships they develop are even more so. The appeal is watching a character trying to be moral in a situation where doing so gets you killed and starting to hate him for it. It's seeing him slowly but surely lose his moral compass and become just another contestant, and watching him regret it later. It's fighting the urge to shout "you moron!" as he falls deeper into a toxic relationship and yet empathizing with him.

This show is absolutely insane, and I love it.

Sword Art Online (2012– )

Interesting concept and well executed for the most part

[8/10 · 11 December 2013]

Sword art online is set in a virtual reality fantasy MMO where players cannot log out and die once killed in the game.

Without giving anything away, the show's greatest strengths lie in the rich environment and the extremely creative scenarios they explore. Unfortunately the show doesn't dedicate enough time to really fleshing out this world and exploring the possibilities within it, but the stuff they did was absolutely fantastic.

The first few episodes are disjointed, each with loosely connected to the overall story, mostly through the main character and one or two side characters, and that is the best done part of the show. Each episode reveals more about the hero's personality, and is really full of interesting characters and good sub-plots and a soundtrack that fits very well. You could literally sit through one episode and feel like you watched an entire movie despite the fact that they're just over 20 minutes each. They're extremely well done. This applies for the first 10 or so episodes.

The later episodes are more a part of the main story, with more focus on moving forward with the plot which are also well done for the most part. The characters introduced are also very good. The action scenes are intense and the relationships are developed well.

So what's wrong with it? Like I said before, the first major problem is that it didn't dedicate enough time to simply exploring the world. A lot of time passes in a short number of episodes(14 episodes span 2 years in the show); the characters could have been a lot stronger if more episodes were dedicated to exploring different aspects of this world and the people in it.

The second major problem is the unnecessary second major plot later in the show. It feels like an entirely different show with the stakes being a lot lower than they were in the first part. If they dedicated those episodes to expanding the first part it would have been a lot better.

A small problem I have with it is that every female character having significant interaction with the hero falls in loves with him at some point. Those plots are done well mostly, but it would have been nice to see him have a female friend who was just a friend throughout, if only to break the pattern.

If you're coming from a shounen background(Naruto/Death Note/Bleach etc.) or have never seen anime in your life, you will most definitely love this. Even hardcore anime fans should easily enjoy this since its one of the best of it's kind(much better than titles like Naruto).

All in all, the good greatly outshines the bad, and I recommend you give it a watch.

The Raven (I) (2012)

Ungodly boring

[1/10 · 14 April 2012]

I'm not sure where all the good reviews are coming from, this was an incredibly boring movie despite the gore.

Let's face it, if you've seen the recent sherlock holmes movies, this should be very familiar(they've even taken stock footage from those movies). The only difference is that the fact the detective character is a poet, and the killer is killing the same way as Poe's books and kidnapped his beloved, an extremely contrived way to get him to follow up on the case.

The real detective is useless, who serves no purpose other than to ask Holmes, sorry, Poe for help.

Sydney White (2007)

Predictable, Predictable, Predictable

[27 September 2011]

Don't get me wrong, this movie is enjoyable. I really like AB; she's rather talented and enjoyed her performance in She's the Man. This movie is a clean comedy that is actually enjoyable by all ages. The acting was great, the plot, not so much.

The plot is extremely predictable. The geek stereotypes are insulting, I really doubt any girl can be as shallow as the sorority and the Snow White references weren't really subtle. They make her work on a Mac just so the hacker can feed her a "Poisoned Apple"(yes he says that). I mean come on, the idea of a movie reference is that it's SUBTLE. You don't explain it, people figure it out. But regardless the actors did make the best of a bad situation and did make it enjoyable but the plot itself really annoyed me. 4/10