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davehobson9
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Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro (2018)
Chio
A genuinely funny, oddball comedy about Chio and her experiences making her way to school in the morning. Not much plot to speak of, but that's not the point with this show.
Each episode has 2-3 small snapshots of the antics that Chio goes through on her morning commute and the cast of characters that surround her are by and large all fairly enjoyable to spend time with. There is some loose plot connection between episodes but nothing foundational.
There is a fair amount of fan service and some characters (both men and women) who letch on the school-age girls at various points which can be a bit uncomfortable to watch, and there are scenes of what would be classed as sexual assault in the name of comedy. I don't think there is anything sinister about the intention of these sorts of scenes, but they can come across quite gross and just from a western perspective it's something to consider if you're thinking about watching this if those sorts of issues can affect your experience.
I watched the dub, and the dub is great! You can tell the main voice actors really had a good time with the over-the-top delivery, and the dynamic between Chio and her best friend really feels like a true, goofy friendship that will last the ages.
The music is solid and the animation is really nicely done too.
So if you're after a zany comedy anime that's fairly breezy, albeit with the issues mentioned previously, then you could do a lot worse. Some genuine laugh out loud moments and likeable characters make it worth a watch.
Cannon Busters (2019)
Not the best
As mentioned in a number of other reviews, this anime is pretty derivative of Cowboy Bebop and Trigun amongst others, but doesn't really come close in any way to any of the classics it apes.
Some things that I liked.
- Diverse representation ✅
- Bessie (The Car) was pretty rad ✅
- Some of the scenes/settings were cool ✅
- Opening theme is a bop ✅
Now the rest.
There is very little character development, the music is pretty forgettable (the main theme is pretty decent though), the animation style doesn't look quite right though the CGI was pretty decent (didn't find it too off-putting like in some other anime) and tonally this is all over the place. Also despite it's 12 episode run there were several filler episodes that just bog the show down.
It starts out fine and I was intrigued by episode 1 as it seems like a decent adventure that'll have some laughs in it, but the very next two episodes have some basically horror plot points where a family out in the middle of nowhere are skinning people on hooks and making clothes from the skins. Then it jumps back to goofy stuff and has similar tonal shifts throughout the rest of the episodes. I'm a horror fan but I just found this really jarring as it didn't seem to know what sort of show it was.
Whithin about 2 minutes of meeting a character you basically know everything about them. There is little back story for any of them and what we do see is all fairly surface level. Philly The Kid is unlikeable and becomes a real PoS at the end out of the blue. Sam is incredibly powerful but when her powers activate is determined by how much they need to stretch a plot point out - she should just annihilate anything that is a threat to her mission (which includes attacks on her/on her friends that are helping her get to the Prince). 9ine is one of the main characters yet is only in 4 of the 12 episodes.
The story is some pretty standard fare and the twists that occur are all fairly predictable. We're also not even told what a Cannon Buster is until the last 5 minutes of the last episode.
While this anime has some redeeming moments and features, they're much too few and far between. It's something I wouldn't recommend to friends.
Go watch Cowboy Bebop again instead.