Pre post EDIT: I just wrote this entire lengthy post, and Reddit deleted all of it just because I swiped up on my phone on accident. So now I have to type it all again. :l Fuck man, I hope I can get all the same thoughts back into it in almost the same exact way.
After post EDIT: tl;dr MAL should rate each episode, then average them to give an overall fairer series score, to avoid deflated scores from early Ep 1 droppers. And as a Shounen lover I give Radiant a 9 while the side of me trying to keep my Shounen love in check gives it an 8, and I really hope you decide to join me on the crusade to get it to blow up and stop being completely unknown. :D And I reccomend reading the entire post if you have time. c:
So let me start off by saying this review is copied and pasted from another post, in which I tried to rally the entire world to help me get Radiant to stop being completely unknown and blow up as one of the big Shounens of today, and I got bullied and shit on for writing it as a massive text wall instead of separating what I said and for my use of caps for emphasis. ;-; Here's a link to it if you'd like to take a look. https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/9u8u51/if_you_watch_anime_please_read_this/
Anyways, someone in the comments of that post asked me for a review of the 5 episodes that were out to try to convince them, but by the time I edited it into the original post I was sure the post was already buried. So I wanted to get it a fresh audience, since I'm doing all I can to help Radiant blow up. :o Keep in mind, this was my first time ever officially reviewing anything so I know it might not be the best (I was also given some tips on how to make it better, but I decided to leave it as is as a record of sorts for my first ever review) AND it was my first time separating what I say instead of text walling (which I'm also doing right now as you can see) so please bear with me on both fronts. >_< I'd also like to say that Shounen is my favorite genre even though my favorite anime itself (Re: Zero) is not Shounen, so I tried to put my Shounen love aside as much as possible.
But before that, I'd like to copy and paste another thing from that post in which I replied to someone who said that as general rule anything below a 7 on MyAnimeList is not worth watching:
"That's the thingggg man, that's not true. :c Because you can give an anime a rating on MAL literally after watching one episode, no matter how many are out. That means that as episodes keep coming and keep coming, the show still has a bunch of ratings from people that probably dropped it after one episode. Hasn't anyone ever thought of that? :/ It's just not healthy, and that's why I feel like MAL is part of the problem in all of this. For example, you know how there are polls for every episode of every anime on MAL? Where you can rate it 1 through 5 and stuff? If you look at the newest episode of Radiant, episode 5, the most picked option is "5/5 Loved it!". Even though I'm sure countless people have already dropped it after one or two episodes and gave it a bad review. They're already gone, yet their score from 1 or 2 episodes is now taken into account for a full series of God knows how many episodes of anime. Forever. That just... doesn't seem right. :l Like I actually have no idea how a system where someone can just rate a 20 episode show, or a 40 episode show, or a 100 episode show after one episode and now their rating is taken into account for all to see ever got so big without anyone questioning it or thinking "Uhhhh... wait a minute". You know?"
That was the comment. :o It's just not conducive to helping a show grow based on how good it actually is, and instead just makes it really easy for a show to be buried after literally one episode since SOOOOOOO many people use MAL scores as a way of instantly telling if a show is worth watching/good or not. Especially when Shounens are the WORST thing to judge after just one episode.
A very, VERY easy fix for this is to make everything reviewed on a per episode basis, instead of letting anyone review an entire show the second the first episode is out. :o At which point MAL can take all the scores for an episode, average them out to get the overall score for that episode, then take the overall scores for the all the other episodes as they keep coming and average THOSE out to get the overall score for the anime. A Metacritic system of sorts. :o It's not perfect since it wouldn't stop people from giving every episode a bad score without even watching them if they really wanted to, but it'd still be MUCH better than what they have now. So think about that and spread it around guys, and don't use MAL scores as the end all be all for a show when you know the kind of system that's in place. :o Especially when there's a large group of people (or maybe just a vocal minority, I'm not sure) that are ready to bury new Shounens after literally one episode. Now without further ado, here's that review:
"Alright so let's start this review at the very beggining... This show actually hooked me, with just the opening. No joke. Like that first episode could have JUST been the opening, and I would have been like "WHERE'S THAT EPISODE 2" xD. The characters they showed, the actual contents of the opening and how they flowed with the song, the HYPENESS of it, the SONG ITSELF (my favorite genre of music is already rock/metal though, keep that in mind) BEING FUCKING AMAZING, etc. Possibly the best opening ever and a PERFECT opening to get people hype and ready to watch the show, was already 100% on board.
So now let's move on to what I feel are all the positives after 5 episodes. :o This first one relates to me already being hooked after the opening, and that is the character designs, art style, and animation. I think the characters all look SO FUCKING cool in this show, from Seth (the MC) to allllllll the people they showed in the opening. And not just cool either, some of them look VERY unique I'd say, like Grimm who we see in the opening, Melie who is part of the main trio of Seth, her, and Doc so far, Hameline who we see in the opening, etc. Now granted, Grimm and Hameline look very edgy, so if you're one of those people that sees edgy as a negative you might not like their designs as much as I do, though that doesn't detract from their uniqueness at all. Because I LOVE edgy, it's my favorite kind of look actually. :o And while some may argue that Seth looks generic, I would argue that Seth looks shounen in the BEST of ways and not in a bad/ugly/generic kind of way, like the kid from Puzzle & Dragons X for example. Because his clothes are cool as fuck, his little horns are cool and give him that extra sense of uniqueness to his look, and his hair while it may look like nothing special at a glance, I believe tops off his design perfectly and also looks cool. :o To summarize, painfully shounen in a bad way = the kid from Puzzle & Dragons X, and painfully shounen in the best of ways = Seth from Radiant.
Moving on to the art style and animation, I think it is just PURE eye candy. Like it is so pleasing to the eye, it actually hurts. ._. It has very vibrant, saturated colors, sharp characters, etc. I would put it RIGHT next to My Hero in terms of how visually appealing it is, which is also highly regarded as eye candy due to it ALSO having very vibrant and saturated colors, sharp characters, etc. The animation itself goes hand in hand with that, Studio Lerche who just does not slack when it comes to animation (Danganronpa and Assassination Classroom for example) just NAILS it, and it feels like they're putting just as much effort into this show as Bones puts into My Hero.
Next I would say the world design. :o While we haven't seen TOO much of the world so far (really we've only seen the little hillside town of Pompo Hills where the story starts and the city of Artemis) what we HAVE seen so far just screams adventure and fantasy in the best of ways I feel. :o The architecture is really cool, and the world seems to have like a... like a Final Fantasy feel to it almost, you know like it's a fantasy world where there can still be things like little villages/towns but it also feels modernized in a way that a fantasy world would be modernized, and not like medieval fantasy with knights and horses and whatnot, like Elder Scrolls. The BEST example I can give of the world design at it's best so far, is when Seth, Melie, and Doc go to the city of Artemis in episode 5 and we see it from the inside, with a bunch of Sorcerers flying through the sky. I really thought it was a complete wow moment, it looked absolutely amazing. ._. So much so that I really wanted to go there just to hang out lmao. In fact, as Seth was wowing when he saw it for the first time, I was pretty much doing the same thing in my head. xD As an added bonus to how the world feels, the primary means of world travel for a Sorcerer is flight, be it on something small like a broom or something similar, or on a giant flying ship of sorts like the one Doc has which is the one they use. So the fact that that's the primary means of travel, flying through the cloudy blue sky, and the fact that confrontations happen up there because of it REALLY adds to the sense of wonder and adventure I think. :o I've always loved the idea of flying through the sky though. c:
Next I'd say is how the characters and side characters are being handled. :o For this I guess I have to give a basic premise of the show, which looking back I probably should have done earlier, but yeah. ._. The story of Radiant is a story of creatures that fall from the sky called Nemesis. No one knows where they come from, no one knows why they exist, but they do. And when they fall from the sky, usually in the form of a giant Nemesis egg, once they hatch (which doesn't take very long) they bring death and destruction to the world around them. Those that come into contact with them either instantly die, which is the majority, or they survive and are now marked with a Nemesis curse of sorts, which may or may not come with a physical alteration to their body, a harmful or beneficial side effect that differs from person to person, etc. The main thing it does though, is give that person the ability to use Fantasia (the magic-ish equivalent in the world of Radiant), turning them into a Sorcerer that now has the power to fight. And Sorcerers are the only ones that can fight off the Nemesis. But sadly, the normal people of the world discriminate against Sorcerers and think of them as monsters, even though they're the only ones who can keep the world safe. :/
Now, without spoilers, I think that the journey Seth goes on which starts at the end of episode 3 (a journey to destroy the fabled homeland of the Nemesis called Radiant, which may or may not exist because none have confirmed it's existence) has very good reasoning behind it. While lots of people want to call shounens generic, again I feel like they're just ready to call any kind of long journey generic, regardless of how much the world, characters, or reasons differ from anime to anime. Which is weird, because most other genres like Slice of Life or Seinen or anything really, don't seem to have this issue, even though in a lot of them there is a thing established early on that will unfold by the end similar to the rest of the shows in their genre, with different characters, reasons, worlds, and no one calls those generic. But when a Shounen differs in those same ways from other Shounens, people still rush to call it generic. ._. Anyways, I won't spoil the exact reasons for why Seth decides that enough is enough and starts his journey, but I will say that neither he nor his motherly figure Alma (who is also a Sorcerer and a strong one at that) are exempt from the discrimination against Sorcerers. And that's why, without spoilers, I feel like Seth's journey is one that should stand out (among people that think every Shounen journey is the same that is), he doesn't just want to be the strongest Sorcerer like some other anime characters just want to be the strongest for the sake of being the strongest or being number 1. He wants to be the strongest Sorcerer to go destroy Radiant as a result of the things he sees, the things he's experienced, and the world around him. In a way that, literally all of us would probably do the same thing in his shoes. :o You feel for his reasoning, because you would feel the same way if you were him, and you can see how it's kind of a metaphor for people rising up in the real world against things they believe are wrong, like real world discrimination and suffering, hate, and just all the other negative things in the world that make people scream for change, make people get up and BE the change themselves, you know? :o
Continuing about the characters, I think the show does a great job of making you care and feel for them. Specifically, in episode 3, where the majority of the episode is part of the backstory of Seth and Alma, how they met, how it all started, etc, while still leaving some things to reveal for later on. Culminating in the end of the episode where Seth leaves to start his journey and a very emotional, very touching, very sad goodbye takes place between him and Alma, who again has basically been his mother all these years. :/ And some of the backstory was already sad enough... I also like that Seth is introduced to different views of the world very early on, episode 2 in specific, by a certain someone which again I won't spoil. And it's not a very nice view, but it is a VERY logical, realistic one that makes a lot of good points. The side characters are already being handled very well just 5 episodes in as well. :o Like Dragunov for example, who is introduced in episode 4 and by episode 5 already feels like another entity with purpose and character that operates in addition to the main group of Seth, Melie, and Doc instead of a throwaway side character. Which is a good sign, since judging by the opening there are still MANY more characters to come. I also forgot to mention that Seth is just really likeable, along with the rest of the characters that have been introduced so far tbh. :o I think my final point on the characters is that, while I personally believe the show has been good since episode 1 and only gets better with each episode, it's definitely been at it's finest ever since the main group of Seth, Melie, and Doc was formed in episode 4. xD They are SO ENTERTAINING as a group, omg. And a dynamic they have which I personally haven't seen in pretty much any of the Shounens I've watched which I think is just GREAT, is that Doc isn't a Sorcerer. He's a researcher and he's like a middle aged/close to middle aged man, so he's basically like the fucking chaperone who can't fight to the young duo of Seth and Melie, and their interactions are just fucking hilarious and have killed me MULTIPLE times. Seth and Melie have already driven this guy fucking nuts in LITERALLY one episode, but he does kind of deserve it since he's kind of a dick atm albeit still a cool guy. xD Dragunov is also really cool, and has a cool name which I forgot to mention is another thing I really like about this show, the fucking names are really cool. ._. Grimm, Dragunov, Hameline, Melie, Liselotte, LOVE the names.
Alright so I'm PRETTY sure that wraps up all the positives... As for the negatives, hmm... The main thing I can think of is that the first episode might not be exciting enough BESIDES THE OPENING to grab people's attention, but I think that's subjective as a negative. Because it's a setup episode, and I'm very generous with animes needing a couple episodes to setup, especially Shounens since those usually always need to do so. So an episode or two of setup for a show I already think I'm gonna like a lot doesn't bother me at all, but I've seen a lot of people on the internet drop shows after one episode literally because the first episode wasn't exciting enough, like not even giving it the chance to setup which is obviously what it was trying to do. :o Basically saying that even if something is trying to setup, if it's not exciting it's bad. It's like the people that call the episodes of MHA where it's mostly world building and dialogue bad episodes just because they aren't exciting, when they are literally adding to the plot and moving it forward. ._. And I think that's pretty dumb. Just the first episode though, things already start happening in the second one. Including a nice, healthy dose of that good ol' SHOUNEN HYPE that makes Shounen what it is near the middle/end. Aside from that, nothing else about this show so far has really bothered me to the point where I'd bring it up as a negative. :o
And I think that concludes my first ever review of anything. xD If I were to score it based on the first 5 episodes, I'd say the Shounen lover side of me would give it a 9, and the side of me trying to keep my Shounen love in check and remain as unbiased as possible would give it an 8. Overall LOVE the show, easily my number one show of the season and I'm really looking forward to what's to come. And I really want it to blow the fuck up enough to stand right by My Hero. Though that's pretty obvious since I made that pretty clear in my original post. :o Hopefully this wasn't too bad of a first review or a first time trying to separate what I say instead of text walling, I tried my very best. :D ON A FINAL NOTE, THE SECOND I saw Hameline in the opening, I thought "THAT'S GONNA BE NEW BEST ANIME GIRL", but right now without her around MELIE is new best anime girl. ❤❤❤❤ LISELOTTE is a best anime girl contender also, Radiant came out here fucking SWINGING to take over the new best anime girl spot with THREE SEPARATE PEOPLE, FUCKING hell man. xD"
And that was the review. Tyvm for your time. c: As a final note, I wish Black Clover (which btw I've watched every episode of and I love, and I STILL want Radiant to be way bigger than it. That's how much this show does it for me. I already prefer it to Black Clover, a Shounen I love that has 60 something episodes, after just 5 episodes. Seriously, I have never wanted a show to blow up this badly in my life people. ._.) had a studio that put as much care into making it as Bones and Lerche put into My Hero and Radiant. :c
Submitted November 09, 2018 at 02:12AM by I_Love_Anime_Women https://ift.tt/2zDeu0A
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