Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song Review: What it Means to Sing With Your Heart.

The past year has sadly not been kind to the great WIT Studio.
Apparently they have lost 501 million yen, or 4.5 million dollars, in the fiscal year.
This is extremely unfortunate when you consider not only what they have put out before, like Attack on Titan for example, but also what they put out after such a loss.
One of these anime was Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s song, probably one of the year’s best anime.
Created by Tappei Nagatsuki and Eiji Umehara, the story is set in a world where AI technology has progressed to the point that many of them appear human.
One of the most advanced AI is Diva, called Vivy (Atsumi Tanezaki) by one of her young fans, and her reason for existing, or her “mission” as the AIs call it, is to make people happy with her singing.
However, this may not be so simple because she suddenly finds herself being recruited by an AI named Matsumoto (Jun Fukuyama), who was sent from the future to stop an AI takeover where all of humanity was slaughtered.

Preventing rogue AI from killing all of humanity is hardly an original concept, but *Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song* tells it extraordinarily well.

Reluctantly joining Matsumoto, Vivy goes on a series of missions to prevent the AI uprising and learn what it means to sing with your heart, all in the span of 13 amazing and emotional episodes.
What makes these episodes so great is how they not only build upon Vivy’s character, and her growing partnership with Matsumoto, but also develop the many different side characters in their own side narratives, whether they be human or AI.
The emotion produced from these scenes is helped by the excellent animation and soundtrack.
This standard of animation also extends to the action sequences, which are nothing short of spectacular, with their constant fluid movement.

If you pause at any point in an action scene of *Vivy*, you will most likely find plenty of detail, showing how much effort was put into animating all of this.

As for the soundtrack, there are many amazing songs that I have found myself constantly listening to ever since I finished the show.
From the OP “Sing My Pleasure,” to its counterpart track by Grace, to the titular “Fluorite Eye’s Song,” which got me tearing up when I finally heard it.
All of this combines to create a spectacular anime that I would highly recommend.
I cannot think of a single weak episode among the lot.
They all either bring an emotional moment or an interesting twist to the story, with fantastic development for Vivy, Matsumoto and the side characters, alongside an excellent soundtrack and vibrant animation.

*Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song* is a complete package anime. I’d call it a masterpiece.

I hope that Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song can help get WIT Studio’s profits up, along with whatever anime they go on to produce in the future.
Check out this emotional rollercoaster ride of an anime if you have not already.

Noragami Review: I Need Season Three.

This year, I took on the role of an executive at the anime club, meaning I could suggest some anime for us all to watch.
One of these anime I suggested was Noragami, a show with two seasons, which I had heard a lot of good things about.
The first episode showed a lot of promise and many of my fellow students also seemed to like it, so it was one of the anime chosen for us to watch this semester.
And I, for one, am already hooked and need a season three.
Adapted from the manga by Adachitoka and directed by Kotaro Tamura, the anime follows the stray god Yato (Hiroshia Kamiya), who dreams of becoming famous and having millions of worshippers one day.
When an ordinary girl, Hiyori Iki (Maaya Uchida), finds herself able to interact with the world of spirits and gods after and accident, Yato agrees to help her get her back to normal, for the small price of five yen, of course.
With the help of Yato’s Regalia – a spirit of a dead person who can turn into a weapon for a god when they are given a name – Yukine (Yūki Kaji), the three go on many misadventures, both hilarious and dark, as they slowly begin to feel more like a family.

The growing friendship between Yato, Hiyori and Yukine is a great thing to see.

The situations that these three great characters find themselves in being either comedic or grim is highlighted by Yato himself, who can go from looking as harmless as a puppy to full on murderous swordsman in the span of a minute.
This dark side to Yato is often spurned on by Nora (Rie Kugimiya), Yato’s former Regalia who just brings out the worst in him.
Yato’s past with Nora is an interesting part of the story, making for a lot of fun speculation to have before the reveal of what he has really done.
And what Yato did in the past has gained him a few enemies, most notably Bishamon (Miyuki Sawashiro), who holds a massive grudge and relentlessly pursues him with the help of her Regalia Kazuma (Jun Fukuyama), who is definitely my favourite character in the show.

Kazuma’s amazing growth in the second season makes him one of the anime’s best characters.

It is his and Bishamon’s storyline that lead to the greatest arc of the anime in the first part of season two, which created a lot of intense moments with members of my anime club both cheering and screaming in horror at what was happening.
The second half of season two also introduced another one of my favourite characters Ebisu (Ryōtarō Okiayu), who I really wasn’t expecting to like when he was introduced.
However, he more than exceeded my expectations due to his fantastic interactions with Yato, resulting in a moment that actually got tears out of me in the final episode.

I was surprised by how much I liked Ebisu and look forward to see what his role will be.

As you can probably tell, season two “Aragato” is definitely my favourite season but season one is also a lot of fun with great humor, character development, and intense action.
Combine this with some fantastic openings “Gora wa Machiawse” and “Kyouran Hey Kids!!” which we were all singing along to by the end and you have yourself a really good time.
Noragami is a great anime that I will wait for a season three with crossed fingers, before probably caving in and reading the manga.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection Review: A Mixed Bag Just Like the Show.

I have mixed feelings about Code Geass.
On the one hand it has instances of brilliant writing, on the other hand it has instances of pretty terrible writing.
That said, it does have an incredible ending that makes a follow up extremely difficult to pull off.
In order to solve this problem, director Gorō Taniguchi decided to set this story in an alternate universe with a few minor changes to the original story… with mixed results as expected.

lelouch meboy — The film has as many positives as it does negatives, just like the original anime.

Lelouch of the Re;surrection is set one year after Lelouch’s sacrifice during the Zero Requiem.
A revived Lelouch (Japanese Jun Fukuyama, English Johnny Yong Bosh) is under the care of C.C (Yukana and Kate Higgins) when his sister Nunnally (Kaori Nazuka and Rebecca Forstadt) and good friend Suzaku (Takahiro Sakura and Yuri Lowenthal) are kidnapped by the enemy nation of Zilkhistan.
Now C.C and the Black Knights must find a way to bring Lelouch back to his former self so he can rescue the two and defeat Zilkhistan.
The film is well voice acted, animated and scored, with some great action sequences throughout.
Along with this, the writing is occasionally great just like how it is occasionally great in the show.
Lelouch and C.C are definitely the highlights, with their relationship having a fantastic arc that ended the film well.

The way *Lelouch of the Re;surrection* ends with Lelouch and C.C’s relationship is genuinely touching.

It was a lot of fun to see the man of miracles at work again, defeating his enemies using his brilliant tactics.
In particular, one prison sequence where Lelouch got to show off his skills is a terrifically fun sequence.
And then there’s the villains of the film who, while they are not really interesting characters, do have an interesting motivation.
Their actions show the consequences of the Zero Requiem in a way that was believable and understandable.
Although, this does undermine the authenticity of the original ending somewhat.
Unfortunately, the issues of Lelouch of the Re;surrection don’t end there.
For starters, the changes to this story with the alternate universe don’t really have a point.
Take Shirley (Fumiko Orikasa and Amy Kincaid) for example.
She is brought back to life and the reason for this was so that she could sneak Lelouch’s body to C.C but this doesn’t really make any sense considering Shirley doesn’t have the skills to smuggle Lelouch’s body out.

It felt like Shirley was kept alive just because the writer wanted her to be rather than there being a legitimate reason.

Not only this but a lot of the characters seem to forget Lelouch’s actions in the parts of the original story that are still canon.
Cornelia, weirdly enough, seems to be not as angry about Lelouch, you know, using his Geass on her sister Euphemia and then killing her.
Also, Oghi does something in this film that comes out of nowhere and feels really out of character.
And then there’s the problems with the original series that is carried over, chief among these being fan service.
Now, there is nothing wrong with fan service but does it have to come during these big emotional moments?
I can’t get invested in a scene where C.C encourages Lelouch during a dire moment if the shot spends so much time focusing on her private parts.
It makes these scenes comical rather than emotional.
Still, despite these problems, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection is a good film.
It does have occasional moments of brilliance, even if they are bogged down by problems, both old ones from the original show and new ones entirely.