Daos

Good god that's an awful lineup. The only good show with new episodes is going to be MHA from now on?

Nah it's over. It's a lot like Lost. Once the writers expose that they never had any idea what they were doing there's really no demand for more.

I haven't seen such a retarded ending to an anime since...

Here's someone's long ass review of Fena that I agree with.... "If B: The Beginning is what happens when the producers at Netflix restrict Kazuto Nakazawa’s creative vision so much, the final product feels watered down and forgettable, then Kaizoku Oujo is what happens when the retards at Toonami and Crunchyroll clamoring for any original content they can use to advertise their dying platforms say yes to everything and allow the project to completely fly off the rails. B: The Beginning is this team’s previous project, and Kaizoku Oujo undergoes a similar decline. The first five episodes of B: The Beginning were solidly written, and they were packed with originality and intrigue. However, that intrigue ultimately amounted to very little, and while the show was never truly bad, it felt like the journey wasn’t worth the destination. Moreover, the show also declined visually. The first five episodes were so well-animated, I could hardly believe my eyes. I always expect the best from Production IG’s in-house animation staff, and they always deliver, but gosh, B: The Beginning just caught me off guard for some reason. It was incredible, but they unfortunately weren’t able to maintain that quality. The remaining episodes still looked good—obviously much better than the average trash you and I waste our time watching—but they were undoubtedly disappointing when compared to what came before, and this combined with the writing getting worse just exacerbated the fact the show as a whole wasn’t turning out as great as it originally seemed. Kaizoku Oujo is both similar and different. Unlike B: The Beginning, its staggeringly beautiful animation remains consistent, and it’s easily among the most well-produced anime I’ve seen this year (alongside Ousama Ranking, Sonny Boy, and Mushoku Tensei). But much like B: The Beginning, the script didn’t really pan out. However, whereas B: The Beginning stopped at being merely underwhelming, this show gets downright stupid. It begins as a good old fashion treasure hunt. It’s like National Treasure, only if Nic Cage was an adorable anime girl, his friends were Japanese ninja warriors, and the Freemasons’ treasure was a place called “Eden.” At first, everything about the show is praiseworthy. The main cast is fully introduced by episode three, and their characterization is immediately delightful. You’re quickly endeared to everyone, and the show has almost no melodrama throughout the entire first half, so you’re never forced to hate any of the characters for the sake of conflict. The artwork is always beautiful, and the animators clearly had tons of fun drawing amusing and expressive faces, and since the show is so well-animated, these expressions get to have so much soul and make everyone feel alive. The voice actors and actresses also clearly had just as much fun. I can count on my hands the number of anime where the comedy isn’t the most annoying, unfunny shit on the planet, and this is one of them. Since this is a shoujo/josei anime instead of your average shounen/seinen anime, the male characters actually get to have some personality and be more than self-inserts, and in general, the characters are also allowed to have sex lives, so both of these aspects make the show feel richer and more multifaceted. Everything is just so merry. When this colorful group of intricately designed female pirates showed up, I thought to myself, “Well, they won’t be animated much. They’re way too detailed.” But less than a minute later they’re all flipping around the screen, sword fighting our main characters. It’s a great time, but this time eventually comes to an end. The essential issue with the final act of the show, simply put, is that it forgoes too many details. If you’re someone who doesn’t sweat the details, then it should be a fun, swashbuckling adventure with an exciting, unexpected finale. But if you aren’t, then…well, let’s see… >Biba from Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is actually a demon with Vampire Eyes? >Hamona from Wolf’s Rain is maybe implied to be the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, also the mother of our protagonist? >The Force Ghosts from Return of the Jedi have romantic reunions in the ruins of the Biblical Noah’s Arc? >Entire swaths of characters are anticlimactically nuked out of the story by a giant fuck-off Gundam canon when they loose relevance? >Dead people become alive and explain to our protagonists how the plot of the anime was supposed to end? >Alive people become dead (maybe incorporeal?) and explain to our protagonists how the plot of the anime is ending? >Some random background character becomes literal God from the finale of Space☆Dandy? lmao roll credits? I encourage everyone to go to YouTube and watch the original preview trailer Crunchryoll uploaded on July 25th, 2020. This preview was clearly animated entirely by Director Nakazawa himself before any major animation production had even begun, because most of the character designs are different, a few shots aren’t in the actual show, and the shots which are in the show look completely different than how they do in the preview. The example which sticks out the most to me is the Rumble Roses (that group of female pirates I mentioned), because this original preview makes their crew look less silly, less like 21st century cosplayers, and more…like actual pirates. I'm going to guess whoever was originally writing the script got canned and replaced by a monumentally incompetent hack, or Nakazawa simply failed to provide the writers with a completed outline and only bothered creating the foundation and inciting incidents of the story so they had to wing it. Either way, the original concept was clearly replaced at some point, but I wonder why they decided to change it from a pirate adventure into this magical, fantastical potpourri of disconnected Western concepts which the Japanese writers apparently aren’t terribly familiar with. I was trying to stay invested, but I feel like they totally lost the plot of the show over the course of the last five episodes and didn't bother going back to find it. It always left me scratching my head, and while the production values remained amazing and the voice acting is always on point, it really feels like half of a two-cour show. And I don't mean that like, "our budget got cut so now we have to fit the plot into 12 episodes.” I mean that if I viewed the entire show and then someone told me that it was 12 episodes of a completed 24-episode show, I would believe that completely, since so many writing choices only make sense viewed through the lens of a truncated script. It doesn't feel hacked together or like it moved too fast, it feels like it's full of holes which are so blatant, they have absolutely no reason to exist. >Oh, they skipped the episode where they explained why Fena is called the “White Marginal.” >Oh, they skipped the episodes where they all get locked up and then escape prison. >Oh, they skipped the episode where they got trapped at harbor and the pretty boy love interest fought the villain on a burning ship. >Oh, they skipped the episode where the ninja warriors face consequences from their people for siding with Fena over them. >Oh, they skipped the episode where they finish teaching Fena how to use weapons so she’s not completely helpless. >Oh, they skipped the episode where they explain all the post-Industrial Revolution technology in “Mid 18th Century Europe.” >Oh, they skipped the episode where the ninja warriors talk about why they're doing what they're doing. >Oh, they skipped the episode where it’s explained why the navy is involved. >Oh, they skipped the second half of the villain’s backstory. >Oh, they skipped the episode where they explain why Fena’s memory holds all the answers. >Oh, they skipped the episode where they explain why the treasures of Eden make people go nuts. >Oh, they skipped the episode where their wild and bizarre guess about Eden turns out to be wrong, so they need to actually sit down and discuss things instead of pulling the answer out of thin air. >Oh, they forgot another plot line. It seems like the writing staff was completely allergic to even the slightest hint of exposition and decided instead to spend the entire show moving slowly and mechanically from plot point to plot point. It was always entertaining, but how they started it—atmosphere wise—wasn't how it went. It's like they changed sub-genres half way through, all the while leaping over giant turning points in the story which would’ve made the shift in tone feel much more natural. I repeat, the episodes we got are paced intentionally, but it feels like whole episodes in between were deleted. Fena and the ninjas were great. They were all very simple, but they were also all very charming, and that’s all you need to build lovable characters. A series of ninja warriors becoming pirates and embarking on a One Piece style journey while following the action-comedy nature of the first few episodes would've made this a great series you could recommend to anyone, but nope. The characters as they were initially presented had lots of charisma and potential for growth, but when the writing went to shit, those who weren’t reduced to plot devices were ignored until the very last minute. The direction this series went was so disappointing and weird. It doesn’t even make sense to call it a pirate show in the title when the main cast does pretty much nothing to label themselves as pirates, which is particularly unfortunate since the concept of using a band of ninja warriors as pirates is a pretty refreshing idea. It feels like there are so many plot elements and plot holes which suggest a very different story before it got turned into whatever the fuck it became, especially when viewed after revisiting that preview from over a year ago. The writing choices were utter madness, but I still had fun with the first seven episodes and the visuals were always absolutely gorgeous. It looks like they had no deadlines or anything to make this show, as the average episode only had around three animation directors, and a few episodes were key animated solo, which is a seriously phenomenal achievement considering the current state of the industry. Lucky for Production IG’s reputation, Nakazawa confirmed that producing an anime for Crunchyroll—despite all their marketing and branding—is basically the same deal as producing one for Netflix. They work up a contract for sharing online distribution rights, slap their name and a Netflix/Crunchyroll Originals credit on the promotional material, and then fuck off, so this production was pure and uncorrupted. It’s so odd seeing a show which was so exorbitantly produced, but which, from a writing perspective, seems like it came from a complete trainwreck production which was rushed to hell and back. It’s so bizarre. I mean, even if Nakazawa didn’t give the writers a completed outline, or even if the head writer was changed halfway though, was it really so hard to write a semi-amusing treasure hunting adventure? >Learn of a big treasure. >Go from place to place solving riddles and evading the law. >Sprinkle some character moments along the way. >Have the same orgasmic Production IG animation. Even with just twelve episodes, this would be perfectly doable. It seems like every show nowadays has to try and force some insane Shyamalan Twist for the sake of depth. Nothing can ever just be a straightforward, grounded, and sincere adventure anymore. What made Kaizoku Oujo DUMB as opposed to simply good or bad wasn’t pure incompetence, it was clumsy ambition. If they never tried taking the story to such unworkable creative lengths, it never would’ve lost its own plot and could’ve stuck to its original, modest, and entertaining formula. I’m just at a loss as to why it all turned out like this with such a strong production. Maybe writing a review wasn’t the best idea, because I’m totally conflicted over what I should even score this show. I suppose I have to give it a five, because it was astoundingly gorgeous and tons of fun, so I can’t give it a negative score in good conscious, but it ended up jumping the shark and making basically no sense, so I also can’t give it a positive score. I mean, I can hardly even say it jumped the shark, because the shark it tried to jump was in a different ocean altogether, sat there wondering “where the fuck?”

We just like having the Joker in things, it doesn't have to make sense.

Yeah I like how they didn't make him all knowing like they usually do. Usually he's a 12th level intellect like Lex Luthor and would have figured this out instantly, negating the entire murder mystery aspect of the movie.

Pfft I knew way before Batman, I should be Batman!

He's lying to save his wife.

Too much fried chicken.

Given the guns were found in Dent's basement and the Oxford connection with the mobsters son I'm gonna say it definitely Dent's wife at this point.

Yeah normally I really dislike Catwoman. She's normally a spiteful selfish bitch who thinks she's adorable because she steals, and constantly backstabs everyone. This Catwoman is actually a likeable protagonist.

They've spent a LOT of time on Harvey's wife. There almost has to be a major plot point with her later or all that time was a waste.

So is this going to be a plot twist where the killer is Dents wife or something?

Swing and a miss Demarco.

Fena is Roger Smith from American Dad. She is.... THE DECIDER

I thought this was just going to be a mediocre anime. But this ending is elevating it to epic embarrassment levels. This isn't good writing.

They really went full convoluted bullshit on this ending didn't they?

Btw according to ATT this show is DBS, followed by Sword Art Online.

Yay lets watch this and then forget it ever existed 5 minutes later!

I enjoyed the first 2 or 3 seasons of Jojo. But man it just goes off the rails and loses any semblance of coherence. The horny rape monkey whose stand was an actual ship was a nice touch though.

Not as gay as the sequel "Futa Pirate Princess."

This reminds me of the secret wars arc from the 90's Spiderman cartoon. Villains teleported through time and space given their own countries.

Welp. Toss another one in the mediocre forgettable anime pile.

What is even happening?