January 22, 2025

A 90s shoujo, class-s/yuri gem

What a show!!. Personally that's the wildest anime I've watched, and it even had a mostly great (and often utterly horrifying) story. I'm really fascinated that 39 episodes came out of a 3 volume manga series (if nothing else, I would not be surprised to learn that most of the last 7 or so episodes were totally anime original). There's some moments where it lost me, in terms of believability (even with a healthy amount of suspension of disbelief), but the drama & storytelling in general make up for it.

It's quite over the top, surreal, melodramatic, etc. And it spins one complicated and fascinating web, between all the different characters and their relationships with each other. I think is is a solid, spoiler-free review of it. My biggest issue with it was the last 7 eps, which felt like someone told the director ok let's tie everything up, and retcon it all into a tidy, happy ending, and pretend nobody was gay" (whether or not the show actually achieved this is another matter).

While I can't speak to the influence of the anime itself, I do know that the mangaka Ikeda, Ryoko was very influential on shoujo manga in general, and is often associated with the (rather confusingly named) Year 24 Group. I've finished volume 1 of the manga | L25, and it's quite innovative. Ending episodes aside, so far I feel like the anime fleshed things out incredibly well, and has a much better sense of suspense, since it was able to take its time with things. I'll come back and update once I'm done with all 3 volumes though.

Gradings:15
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easier than暁のヨナ S1L28
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easier thanAKB0048 S1L27
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