Scalpelexis

A "sanctuary" means a refuge. The entire 2nd season, i.e. the Sanctuary arc of the literary source material, felt rather ironically like a death row prison. After a first season spent exploring the world, finding the main character's social status, and figuring out his abilities, Re:Zero moved full force into opening the doors not only of the margrave Roswaal's estate, but more importantly, the history of the wider ensemble and the local Blair witch mysteries. The purposefulness of the narrative is evident upon viewing, and this series, after a heavy-handed and overblown bombardment of flashbacks, has grounded all the important characters into specifically carved out positions, almost in a single line, with cards open and the table empty for continued runs. Ok, why not. Unfortunately, the commodity most needed yet most lacking was stage space: the characters, like us, were nonstop choking and waterboarding in the style of an interrogation behind the tight, ever-closing walls. The claustrophobic plot in the figuratively sketched labyrinth of Sanctuary viciously had us wandering several times, only to return in confusion to the starting point and then be thrown into the same vortex again, except this time the experience would be a little different, though just as annoying. The repetitive peripeteia eventually came to an end, but I can't say that I felt in any way enriched by the experience or that the new information provided was worth the time. The issues of this Gordian knot seemed easier than its legendary unraveling, my thoughts pushing Subaru with all my might to that one, disaster-predicting spot, and when it first happened, it made for that perfect spectacle that Re:Zero's potential promises. Episode 6 is a scripted, action-packed gem with a plethora of artistic ideas, creatively complemented and linked by music – which, damagingly, was never even once repeated. The stretching of the story reached such flagrant levels that it became abundantly clear when the makers of "Subaru reloaded" could(n’t) afford it. It's not hard to deduce that it wasn't too many times, because once again, no one has had the courage/reason to go through that arduous journey without throwing a noose around their neck for good. I must also mention the lackluster finale, which admittedly added to the cisterns of tears, but the more ingenious resolution of the mega-threat probably remained on Ever Given, the ship stuck in the Suez, as we got a trite 5 minutes, a severely unsatisfying substitute. In the end, only the character of the teenaged Emilie emerged confidently, interestingly completing the character of Roswaal, awkwardly dispensing with the bloodthirsty antagonist, and delivering the ultimate irritating drag. Accompanied with the stuttering plot, the visuals had a similar tendency, the quality from Season 1 blowing hot and cold. I had only minimal enjoyment from the increasingly round faces and the action sequences were cartoonishly over the top. I'm getting a headache from this season, feeling insanely sleepy after watching it, but there is hope that it’ll pick up. It just needs a little more life and, ironically, death. A weak 3 stars

I'm crying inside. After the first season, my feelings about The Promised Neverland were in 7th heaven and I was eager to stretch them out for at least another 11 episodes. I trusted few anime so deeply (I even bought the manga for my girlfriend, who liked reading it), so the overwhelming out of the blue and growing frustration with dismay after the 4th episode was akin to the proverbial daggers in the back, stealing one's first born, and other similarly equivalent betrayals (even Saruman would feel childish). Not only the creators, but with them the characters began to trade sanity for madness, tearing out pages of the source material by the dozens and trying to tyrannically cram a disproportionate amount of substance into the few remaining episodes with a requisite dose of profanity and pointless manipulation. The tension, the intelligence, the atmosphere – everything boasted by the first season vanished into thin air faster than a bitcoin offered for a few crowns. The hitherto believable developments took an undignified twist and turn for the main characters, the rival world dissolved with the ease and speed of a snap of a finger, and instead of imaginatively rising from their seats at the end to collective deafening applause, you absorb the incomprehensible final minutes of a deadly unmoving Power Point presentation, realizing with each passing second that even your deeply loathed mother-in-law is actually much nicer than this ordeal. Any even slightly passionate fan must have asked themselves at least 10 times the fundamental question "Why and at what cost?" this tragic act took place. But do we want to know? Personally, for peace of mind and sleep, probably not. This anime was indeed just promised; it would have been preferable if this Neverland from Season 2 had never existed. Objectively a nostalgic 2 stars; subjectively I would rate it even more uncompromisingly.

So this episode trumped everything. I can't think of a better representation of how to bounce back and get rid of something for good. To pile hours of material into a few minutes full of unmoving slides would be an insult even to the manga, let alone the anime. I have never experienced such a harsher letdown after a first episode.

A battle royale anime has to reach for two completely opposite components if it wants to be successful and entertaining: either throw away the rules, we’re not playing around, employ some level 9000 kamikaze carnage, or instead dive deep and give it some psychology, a bit of mystery, color the characters, all at the expense of that river of blood. Sadly, High-Rise Invasion chose none of the above, falling right between the so-called halves and still having the unbelievable gall not to end it. The first two episodes were certainly the most interesting: the frightened protagonist runs away from bullets and bladed weapons so artfully that she's often left with nothing but her underwear (and her chest mysteriously grows from episode to episode), soaping it up, down (more like only down given how high up they are on skyscrapers) before figuring out how things are, what she can afford, and finding a couple of also-good-hearted lowlifes (the girls again mysteriously end up with bras only…). The plot then gets completely bogged down – now there's only walking instead of running, talking instead of doing (and that the characters are relatable and overly concerned), and the rules get flipped more than threads in a washing machine. For some reason, it gets doused with a canister of God, set on fire with fake masks, and fertilized with the weird format of The Matrix. The only notable positive is the relatively charismatic Sniper Mask character, voiced with the tailor-made voice of Yūichirō Umehara. Anyway, I'd cut the rest of it like those weird rope bridges.

Total disaster and an explosion on live TV. As a huge fan of this anime/manga, the development of season 2 is heartbreaking to me.

Finally some drama again, but getting the complete minimum of information leaves the viewer confused. Those flat bad guys really should stay home, right.

I'll admit that even I was a bit embarrassed by this episode, and I haven't read the manga. The build-up got weird, the kids started committing previously unimaginable transgressions, and the ending didn't make much sense. After I finished reading the manga up to this point, my opinion of this episode dropped a bit more. The author of the manga is in touch with the creators, so I'm curious as to why they made the decisions they did.

For me personally, the second Camp Cretaceous is worse. Not only have the writers run out of possible inspiration from the original Jurassic Parks, so there's nowhere to steal ideas from and so we’re just boiling water, mainly the behavior and thinking of the characters has started to shift into purely suicidal dimensions. I don't blame anyone for getting used to the environment, of course, but the level of vigilance and the drive for survival has withered to incomprehensible lows, and the creators are making the dinosaurs either tame sheep or the most inept hunters in the history of the planet. The physics is a joke, the little kids mysteriously and successfully run away from a 10x bigger predator for 15 minutes and when it finally has them in front of it, the dinosaur loses all its senses and always passes out. Sure, it's a show for kids, but then again, we shouldn't have to stretch the limits like that for them either, right? Apart from that, no change from season 1.

Sparks fly, hammers fly, Paradis demons fly. The CGI kinda freezes and I felt like they cut the action too much to show the action elsewhere, which loses tension, but it's still top notch.

A well-deserved exhalation and discussion of things nicer than before. Evil is not everything it seems. It's got that pleasantly Hobbit/LotR vibe, where you travel through inhospitable lands and find a nice and unexpected refuge here and there. I won't give it full marks just because it wasn't anything epic or climactic, but I didn't notice any mistakes.