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Apr 12, 2025
If you want to watch My Hero Academia, don't start with season 1. Go and watch season 4 or 5 first, then come back to get that "backstory" you missed out on.
My Hero Academia fluctuated a lot in terms of quality over its course, and sadly, the first season is a very mixed bag that is still controversially discussed, even within the fandom.
While it introduced various interesting concepts, such as being a normal teenager in a world oversaturated with heroes, the effect the wide-spread occurrence of superpowers had on society, or the story of a top tier hero struggling with the loss of his power,
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it fails to live up to them during season 1.
Arguably, the strongest point in this series is the great variety of characters and their abilities. And that's the main reason I recommend to start with a later season. Even though the characters don't change much over the course of the series (a recurring flaw of shonen), how they are presented, as well as their circumstances, change a lot.
For example, Izuku (aka Deku) might come off as a self-destructive crybaby fanboy with no self esteem, while in later seasons, we are more treated more to the caring, helping and intelligent side of his personality.
Same with All Might, who might seem like a complete jerk for shoving a responsibility onto Izuku that the teen can't handle, but is revealed to be caring and well-intentioned yet not good at interacting with other people later.
Even Katsuki Bakugo, who is portraied as the worst bully in existence in season one, grows a lot less threatening as the series progresses, and, with some of his backstory revealed, turns into the typical "rival" for the protagonist.
Even Tenja Iida, who becomes close friends with Izuku and plays a central role during the second half of season 2, is first introduced as "strict and scary" through the eyes of one very intimidated Izuku Midoriya.
Part of the problem is also that the narrative has to wrestle so many characters, that naturally, it cannot give the same amount of attention to all of them, let alone to the basic concepts that make up their world. It covers a bit of everything but can never dive into full detail. Because of this, MHA is a series with more potential than a single author or story could ever handle. Which made it an extremely interesting source to be discussed and expanded by its fandom, and debatably, the reason it gained so much attention and ran for so long.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 12, 2025
This is what I call a "cozy anime", and while I very much enjoyed it, I can see why a lot of other people wouldn't.
It's an anime about a man cooking food for his big doggo and <i>sometimes</i> doing classic Fantasy RPG stuff, like doing quests and exploring dungeons (mostly bc the doggo forces him to tbh).
That's all there is to it. It doesn't have much of a plot - actually, I think there is not even an overarching plot - nothing dramatic ever happens, no one is seriously hurt or dies. It's a family-friendly experience all throughout.
Despite of its incredibly low stakes -
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or maybe because of it, if you're here for the doggo and the food and not the story, it's still worth watching.
The characters are overall likable and relatable, it has its fair share of humor, and you can tell some extra effort was put into the way the food is drawn and presented.
The art is always bright and colorful - it really is the kind of anime you can watch simply to relax. Or to take some cooking ideas away from.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 12, 2025
Having watched this anime, and reading some of the reviews on the manga now, I've come to the conclusion that Berserk is vastly overrated.
(Caution: This review contains sarcasm and a decent helping of bitterness.)
Of course, I cannot gauge whether there is some saving grace to the manga or the main anime series, but as for the prequel; I would only recommend it to the die-hard Berserk fans who won't a flaw in anything Berserk-related anyway.
First things first: I was recommended this series by someone who thought "You like FromSoftware games? You must love this."
Uhm. No.
One thing I dislike about Dark Souls is the medieval setting,
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and thus, I don't really like Berserk's setting, either. It's been done to death. Almost every Fantasy story and every second RPG uses a medieval setting. I'm tired of castles and knights, but it's a flaw I will overlook if the franchise brings some other original concept with it.
What about the animation? It's stiff. Uninspired. The backgrounds feel bland. I could give it a 6/10 at best as it wasn't horrible to look at, just boring. I was expecting an action series, but there was surprisingly little action in it.
The characters? I couldn't relate to the majority of them, and they weren't particularly interesting to me, either. Griffith proved to be an ass, and Guts - who knows what's going on inside of the strong and silent type, anyway? The only character that had me invested was Casca, because she was a female mercenary in a world that disrespected women, and had been abused in the past. Unlike with Guts or Griffith, she faced a daily challenge to prove her standing and independence. I was rooting for her to stand strong in battle and show those men up. I ... was starting to have doubts when Guts had sex with her.
But surely the story made up for all of that?
Nope. For an anime about an awesome swordfighter, it had very little awesome fights. It didn't have a lot of monsters, either. Most of the time, characters were just talking, and I never quite got what it was all about. There was some political intrigue going on, and the only real fantasy aspect in this series up until its finale was Griffiths super weird "egg of god" pendant. Actually, I think the prequel might make more sense if you've seen or read the original series first.
I was tempted to drop the anime several times, but since Berserk is super popular, I kept watching in hopes it would get good eventually or at least save itself with some awesome twist.
Well. There was a twist.
At the very end, the anime cranks the grossness level up to 11.
Griffith transforms into some kind of ugly-ass demon and rapes the only character I was remotely invested in. And we don't even see her fight back much, despite of her being a mercenary and fighter. By comparison, she was raped and abused in the past, but that wasn't explicitly shown, and she had no fighting skills at the time to even try to fight back. Moreover, it gave her a reason to learn fighting, and it served to establish the overall world setting. This second time, by Griffith, served only to appal and disgust; the narritive itself objectified and abused her. And holy crap. I will NOT let a series get away with showing rape, especially if it doesn't serve a strong enough purpose in the narrative, because it's a indicator the author did it because he liked it.
Guts fights gross demon Griffith, stuff gets bloody and gorey for a bit, and that's that. The closing scenes of the final episode (Guts fighting demons and Griffith having taken control of the country) were more intriguing in terms of story than the entire rest of the anime.
Huge thanks to the guy who recommended I watch this because I like SOME FromSoftware titles - Thanks for wasting several evenings of my life and making me never want anything to do with Beserk ever again.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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