#but honestly Kenji had such a satisfying character arc

[alltheboysandgirlsiloved]

I think that is quite lovely how most of the campers didn't really like Kenji when he joined them at the beginning of Camp Cretaceous, and now he is incredibly close with all of them. Like he has a fully development friendship with all of them. He really grew as a person huh

[masezace]

little off topic for my blog, but i started watching a new show since a friend mentioned it was good and i'd heard positive things about it, so i just wanted to talk about it a little bit (probably never again after this since this isn't a fandom blog, but it's the only one i have rn so idc it's going here)

the show is Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, and just going on looks alone, despite my love for dinosaurs and the Jurassic Park franchise i never would have considered it. it appears to be very much for kids, and as i'm in my late twenties now i'm not particularly interested in especially kiddy media. however a friend my age enjoyed it and mentioned it has a canon lgbtq+ couple in it among the main characters, so of course i just had to watch it. i had already been hearing that despite its initial appearance and premise, it was surprisingly good for a kids' show, so i had already been curious, but i was even more keen after knowing there were queer characters, and not even the adults, the kids themselves (in a kid's show?!! what a time to be alive), so i finally sat down and watched it.

[spoiler warning, both minor and major, for the rest of this post btw, so continue reading at your own risk if you haven't seen it yet/are still watching]

the show overall

okay so firstly, i am coming at all of this from the perspective of a writer, so my observations are from a technical standpoint more so than just as a fan of the show. and honestly, it really is a well-written show as a whole. is it geared towards kids? definitely. there are plenty of jokes/gags in it that just don't appeal to me as an adult, but beyond that, there was plenty to appreciate as an adult.

the writing is actually phenomenal? there were several points in the series where i just sat back and mulled over the way a scene went, what the thought process behind writing it was like, how well it was executed, and how important it was to the characters and overall plot.

the suspense is spot on, nothing gets dragged out too long, and i will admit there have been a few scenes throughout that actually got me; i jumped! it's actually scarier than i expected a kid show to be, but i'm so glad they went where they did because it really elevated the experience.

the pacing overall is very good, adequately engaging for kids' short attention spans (and us adhd adults 🥲) but not too short either to a point where things felt abrupt or unfinished. plot arcs are well developed and tied up nicely. also, as a bit of a dinosaur nerd, the array of dinosaurs in the show is super broad and satisfying! very fun stuff.

character element

imo the real gem of this show is the character development. honestly it's just *chefs kiss*

the characters grow and change so much and so realistically over the course of the show, it's honestly so much better and more satisfying than the character growth in most adult fiction/media recently.

the growth in ben (who btw was def my favorite character by the end of s1) and kenji in particular were my favorites and, in my personal opinion, the most interesting. the way ben started out anxious, cowardly, and rule abiding to a fault, then grew into a brave, confident, adventurous little pyromaniac gremlin, then had that stint later in the series where he regressed a bit-questioning himself-until eventually ultimately striking a great balance and really coming into himself was just... peak character writing.

kenji started out overconfident, lazy, and overly concerned with money/status. but that arrogant overconfidence and laziness slowly turned into responsibility, and a desire to protect his found family, and the realization that it's the people in your life that really matter most.

honestly what i mentioned only scratches the surface in terms of those two characters, there's certainly more that can be said about them (as well as all the others) but i'm not really in the mood for a deep dive character analysis atm. just trust me tho when i say these characters are so well done and each one of them have arcs that are super satisfying to watch play out.

queer representation

and as for the queer couple? yasmina and sammy are PERFECT. it was so beautiful watching their relationship grow from one-sided to mutual friendship, to loyal devotion, then to love. they were set up incredibly well and incredibly naturally. i have like, no complaints when it comes to them. i don't even know if there's anything i can say that would add to things, they were just a really awesome couple to watch become canon, they're the beautiful and painfully needed representation we all beg for in tv and movies.

shipping, chemistry, and intent

but oh goodness... probably my only real complaint about the entire show would be how benji (ben x kenji) and kenji x brooklyn (kenlyn? brookji? idk and idrc) were handled. because for all that this show did SO much beautifully right, they really screwed the pooch here, sadly.

i'm gonna start by saying that the writing in this show, as with most, is deliberate. what i mean by this is that despite having no clue who it would be because my friend thankfully did not even spoil me as far as the genders of the queer couple, i clocked yas and sammy as the would-be queer couple as early as season one (actually it was between them and benji, but more on that later). i could already see the chemistry, because it was deliberately written in.

shipping is subjective. anyone can ship any character, and in most cases it's pretty easy to see how there could be (romantic) chemistry between fan pairings based on their personalities, their arcs, etc. and that's okay! ships don't even have to have any canon support to be valid, because shipping is for the fandom, and it's for fun (i have a few rarepairs and crack ships across different media that i just love).

but onscreen/written romantic chemistry is a lot less subjective (to clarify, it is subjective whether or not the chemistry is good, but it's not subjective about whether or not it exists). there are literally scenes written with the sole purpose of building the romantic tension and/or chemistry between planned couples (some of which even have absolutely zero plot relevance, which usually is not advised tbh, and most of which are the cliches/tropes you see in literally any romance ever written, some are just disguised a little better than others. but make no mistake, it's all the same set of cliches. there is nothing new under the sun), as well as intentional, key moments within scenes that have other purposes. they are essential to establish romantic pairings.

and typically, the foundations for these couples are laid VERY early on. always within the first or second season (well, at least they are when the writer actually knows what they're doing and has at least a rough plan/outline for the entire series & characters. this is usually a large part of what separates the good chemistry from the poor chemistry. an author who knows who the couples are going to be and has a plan from the beginning to build them up is going to be more successful in creating a believable relationship with good chemistry. one who does not plan, or makes last minute plans will almost certainly fail, and the couple is just going to suck). when the set of characters you're working with are going to stay the same for most or all of the story, you start immediately.

i don't mean to toot my own horn, because i think it's because i'm a writer so i just pick up on narrative patterns very easily, and pretty much always clock the planned couples within the first few episodes of any series, and by the end i am right like 9 times out of 10.

that being said, do you know whose deliberately written chemistry i also clocked in jwcc? ben and kenji's.

kenji and... brooklyn?

no offense to people who like/enjoy kenji and brooklyn, you are free to love them, but the way their romance was written is... quite possibly the weakest point of the show. it felt like they were just trying to appease the upsetto heteros in charge, because there was definitely another het pairing that had a lot more potential than kenji and brooklyn (hello darius x brooklyn aka darilyn, you would have actually made sense because your relationship had amazing buildup and multiple standout scenes from s1 on. dgmw, i love that we got a m/f strong, supportive, purely platonic friendship out of them, i live for those and we really need more of them. but we could have had that with kenji and brooklyn, or darius and sammy, or ben and yas, literally any other pair instead).

kenji and brooklyn as a couple came out of absolutely nowhere. i honestly think they decided to shove them together last minute, and had no actual plan for them until they were working on s4. because their development barely started at the VERY end of s3 (the abruptness of him caring about her being held hostage so much more than literally anyone else in their group despite them having like zero buildup to that point gave me whiplash), but honestly didn't really even become "meaningful" development until s4, over halfway through the series. the two spend the first 3 seasons basically not particularly gaf about each other individually, only as part of the whole group and on an equal level with everyone else. they otherwise have no deliberate narrative foundation. it just starts in s4 with no prior hinting. which makes their development rocky and difficult to believe. the funny thing is their characters literally have dialogue (in s4) trying to draw comparisons/parallels between them to say that they especially have a lot in common and like??? no? they really don't? not any more so than any other two kids in the group. their relationship just, really falls flat.

it was disappointing to see it take such a massive spotlight in the series for almost all of seasons 4 and 5, overshadowing the friendships that have been the focus of the show and should have remained so, to the point where at times it just felt like i was watching some stereotypical het highschool romance. genuinely, it made s4 & 5 more of a drag to get through. yasammy and ben and yas' growing bond (which by the way was so sweet, it had the strongest queer solidarity vibes good lord, i sure wonder why yas chose ben out of everyone to come out to first, hmmm) were some of the few things that kept me invested, otherwise i would have dropped it if it had leaned much farther into becoming the kenlyn show than it already was. especially when it was that pair so much of the focus was given to, even though we had so readily and perfectly available, the pair that could have, should have been: benji. which finally brings me to:

ben and kenji

benji's foundation was laid in s1. their interactions, the situations they found themselves in, were deliberate (on the writers' part). i'm even gonna go out on a limb here and say the pairings were fully established in s1e3, even with parallels between yasammy and benji (sammy clinging to yas and ben clinging to kenji throughout the episode), and darilyn gets the beginning of their development too.

even though they bicker a lot in the beginning, they clearly care about each other? kenji protects/helps ben multiple times, and there are definitely some looks ben gives kenji at times. at the end of s1, the one who seems the most deeply effected over ben's "death," other than darius (understandably since he's the one who failed to save him), was kenji! immediately after it happens, we get two close up shots, darius and brooklyn then yasmina and sammy. after which, we go back to the whole group with kenji in center frame, the focus is intentionally on him. it is only kenji who drops to his knees at the loss, and then we get a close up of just kenji. he was saved for last, and he was alone in frame (tbf bumpy was in frame too, but i'm talking humans here), which implies his feelings are especially important in this moment. that is the reason for solo close ups.

after ben's "death," kenji takes to always wearing ben's fanny pack, and up until bumpy--who ben cares VERY much about--got separated from them, kenji was the one who (however briefly) took over her care, ensuring she got off the monorail with them, and he's extremely distraught, more than pretty much all of them, when they can't find her, and he's last to leave when they decide to accept that ben's gone. even when they do leave, he's distant and distracted and his mind is clearly still on ben.

other than darius, kenji is the only one (if i'm remembering correctly) to mention ben/say his name after they lost him, upset because he was actually trying not to think about him. he has clearly thought about ben, probably a lot, because it's hard not to be reminded constantly when you wear something that belonged to a deceased loved one. and frankly, he appears to be the only one who dwells on him that much.

when ben reappears alive (which btw he found the group again because of kenji's butter knife, hello), the frames literally purposely focus on kenji's reaction. he's the one in the foreground every time they show him and brooklyn in that scene. he is the first one to say ben's name, the first one to go to him and hug him, and the scene takes special care to highlight kenji's strong emotions at ben's reappearance, lingering on his teary face as the focus for a bit even after brooklyn enters the frame to hug ben (because she is not at all an important element in the scene at that moment). just like when ben "died," the way this scene is written and shot HEAVILY suggests that ben holds significant importance to kenji, specifically. because again, the focus here is on kenji and ben almost exclusively, with brooklyn as only an afterthought lol. and quite frankly literally everyone else's reaction to him being alive was pretty lackluster compared to the special attention they gave to kenji on this.

and then in s3 we have the infamous hat scene, where darius and ben are in the limo and ben sees and mentions kenji's sailor hat, looking sad and sounding like... longing?? then directly after we switch to kenji realizing he forgot his hat?? the scene has no real significance tbh other than to draw a connection between ben and kenji. like, it acts as a transition to switch to the pov of the group on the boat, but it was entirely unnecessary? why not just have darius say something about the others and then show them on the boat? if there were no special relationship between ben and kenji, it would have made far more sense if they really wanted it to be ben to say something, that he sees the hat, and sadly says something along the lines of "i hope the others are okay/doing better than we are right now/etc" which implies that the hat made him think of everyone, their whole group. rather than what we got... which very much implies that he was mostly just thinking about kenji 💀 and then kenji thinking about the hat at the same time ben's looking at it and thinking of kenji. like, this is.... a very blatant connection being made by the writing/directing here.

all of that. so many deliberate connections made between ben and kenji, they had a very solid foundation laid for a romance to develop, and by all intents and purposes one already WAS developing according to the show's own subtext. which was why up until s4 obliterated the idea, i was positive the queer couple in the show was either going to be yasammy or benji. it was extremely obvious imo. but as soon we started getting the typical, loud, cliche "we are going to pair off these characters" scenes for kenji and brooklyn, i knew we were getting yasammy and not benji (to be clear, i'm not at all upset about yasammy, they're beautiful and i love how their relationship was done, i wouldn't have had it end any other way for them. but i do personally prefer benji, i just like their personalities and dynamic more. and i feel they had so much potential that got wasted to make way for a far less interesting pairing between kenji and brooklyn. why can't we have 2 queer couples, huh? and if we really needed a minimum of one hetero pairing to appease whoever needed appeasing, darilyn was right there).

but then??? their like entire bond just gets dropped (honestly ben himself gets pretty heavily sidelined for almost all of the last two seasons, which is criminal imo). mostly so that a rushed kenji x brooklyn can be established. like there are still a few small moments here and there in early s4, and one episode in s5 (ep 10), but from early s4 till pretty much the end of the series we hardly see them have any meaningful conversations or interactions, meanwhile literally every other combo in the group does.

it's so weird? why build up benji so deliberately over the course of multiple seasons just to like, fully discard it for a pairing with far less chemistry, even after the chemistry-building scenes they shared, some of which literally had no other purpose than to affirm their connection? even though they were very sparse, the moments benji had were just so blatant (kenji leaps into the rock crevice right onto the back of a saber tooth to save ben?!!?? like he literally was just willing to exchange his life for him like that?? he basically says that he wasn't really thinking, he just did it. so he moved out of what, emotional instinct, that's what we're meant to intuit from that series of events? implying that he specifically has strong emotion and doesn't think things through when it comes to ben? because he doesn't do that kinda stuff for any of the others in the group! even better, this parallels when sammy jumped on the nothosaurus to save yasmina. and then the way benji look at each other after it's over??? hello??? and then how kenji pulls both brooklyn and ben in for that hug a couple minutes later... side eyeing the writers for that choice. they knew what they were doing there and they were evil for it). i just can't see any reason to have dropped them like they were, after all the development they shared for 3 seasons. confounding. biggest disappointment of the series.

i know this probably reads to some as just "wahh, my ship didn't become canon" nonsense. but that's not why i'm bugged. this wasn't just a ship i liked and wanted canon despite no actual narrative support, as most ships tend to be. this ship did have narrative support. there was intent behind many of their scenes together, lingering looks and little things that matter narratively and are always used to signify a stronger/special connection. and it led nowhere, for no good reason. that bothers me. writing that implies and promises something, but never delivers on it. like a person who never finishes their sentences (think Dr McPhee from Night at the Museum). ultimately it's not a HUGE deal or anything, at the end of the day it's just a ship and just a kids' show. but as a writer, it's just irritating to see something like that be done. what can i say 🤷

conclusion

even despite the wasted potential between certain pairings, and even though i do think the first three seasons were superior to the last two, overall i really enjoyed the show, and for what it was, it was really well-made. the overarching focus was of course on found family and friendship before anything else, which i absolutely love, and it was masterfully done. out of 6 kids, all of them had at least one or two meaningful bonding moments one-on-one with another in the group, so every possible combination had their moment to build strong, believable friendships with each other. i'm just so surprised by how good it was as a whole honestly, good enough to binge over the course of a week. i will happily recommend jwcc to anyone willing to give it a watch regardless of age, because i definitely think there's no age limit for a good story, no matter the medium it's told in. :)

[unnecessary-dinosaurs]

SEASON FIVE SPOILERS

final full thoughts on s5

i went into this season excited, but not expectant of the quality of seasons 1-3. i knew it was gonna be better than s4 but i wasn’t sure by how much. that being said i was completely blown away by this season. it was everything i could’ve wanted from a final season and more.

this shows biggest strength has always been its characters. and this season is an exemplar of that. every character is so well written this season, especially kenji. kenji’s arc through this season just proves why he’s one of my favorites. he can be obnoxious and entitled, but even when he has everything he’s ever wanted, he chooses the camp fam. i love that he also didn’t come to his senses on his own. he needed help from mae, bumpy, ben, like a real person would.

i loved the dynamics between the nublar six this time around. wether it was focusing on established relationships like brooklynn and darius, or new ones like ben and yaz, it always felt very genuine and there was a very real sense of love present.

obviously the most important thing that happened this season was YASAMMY CANON. literally this blew my mind. the best relationship in the show finally payed off after five seasons in the most satisfying way possible. the kiss was amazing and i’m really glad we got to see them just being girlfriends for a bit. a lot of endgame ships just build up for the whole show and then end with them becoming canon. but i loved that we got to see them dating for a little bit.

also reintroducing brand, dave, and roxie was a great choice and their dynamic added so much to this season. i literally missed them so much.

i’m not going to analyze each specific character because i’m lazy but every character had their time to shine. sammy’s scene with mr kon at the end, ben being yaz’s wingman, ben freeing bumpy, brooklynn and darius’ scene, kenji and mae looking out for each other. everyone was great.

now i’m gonna talk about the plot. at first i was worried about the dinosaurs being controlled thing, and it’s honestly still not my favorite, but the action and emotion behind said action made everything work. i loved the two separate plots. the camp fam trying to stop mr kon from mantah corp island, and kenji and his dad on nublar.

i never would have guessed that we would go back to nublar, or that we would spend so much time there, but i absolutely loved it. it brought back so many memories from earlier seasons and tied together some loose ends, like the drone and distress beacon.

the final stand between the watering hole dinos and mantah dino’s was seriously so cool. i know it was ridiculous but that’s kind of why i loved it. it was like completely nonsensical dinosaur battle royale and it was a blast to watch. the spino got some cool moments and the eaties got their happy ending. some awesome action and an all around great climax.

one of the best parts of season 5 was daniel kon as the villain. so easy to hate. he was great not only for the plot but he was more involved with the characters than any other villain. i don’t think it’ll be too controversial for me to say he’s the best villain in the jurassic franchise.

and my final compliment to this season is that it was very true to itself, despite backlash to season 4. i’m really glad they didn’t shy away from any of the concepts introduced in s4 that were disliked. it would’ve felt out of place to just immediately drop brookenji, the brads, and kash. but instead s5 found a way to make them more believable/likeable, or ease them out. like how kash was killed off pretty early, but in a believable way that still developed his character.

anyways this season was a blast and just such a beautiful end. these characters have been begging for resolution since day one, and finally giving it to them was immensely gratifying. this show will always have a special place in my heart. i’ve been obsessed with it for two years, and so i’m understandably very nervous to fall out of love with it, but i’m happy it ended so well.

CampFam4Life!

[dazbooks]

Imagine Me review (spoilers)

first of all I just want to say that I love the Shatter Me series and really respect Mafi as a writer.

However.... I was very disappointed with the final installment of the series. I was so excited for this book and as much as I have tried to feel satisfied I cant help but feel that Imagine Me was just not it.  Overall, Imagine Me lacked the prose and feeling that made me fall in love with the series years ago.

here are my biggest points:

1. WARNERS POV- I loved hearing Warners thoughts and feelings in RM + DM, and I really missed it in IM. The whole time i wanted to hear warners thoughts, especially at the beginning. However we just got a shallow one sided description of his reactions that made him out to be an asshole . I know Mafi is capable of beautifully conveying warner and I honestly dont know why she didnt do it. I feel like Warner was relegated to a side character in Kenjis story and deserved to be heard. I also feel that Warners reactions were out of character; after all he’s been through, making him revert back to his original self was just disappointing. Warner grew and overcame the majority his emotional boundaries in DM; eg his relationship with his father (which had been central to the storyline). My guess is that Mafi realised this too late and didnt quite know what to do with him in IM

2. ADAM??-  I honestly dont even know. There was the whole memory of Juliette and Adam in Oceania that didnt have much of of an explanation. (maybe im just thick) And his sudden transformation into a weirdly happy guy at the end just felt like a cop out. Once again, Mafi had an opportunity to explore a really good arc and emotional journey and she just chose not to touch it.

3. PLOT HOLES AND LOOSE ENDS- there were a few things that just didnt add up and werent explored 

Anderson doing an ‘operation’ on himself: I guess it means he was trying to give himself Adams powers, but it was really unclear and never revisited. 

what happened when Anderson came to the sanctuary: Where did Warner put Juliettes body? How was she discovered? what was the whole french thing with Haider? This is were Warner’s narration could have been very useful

Castle felt weird idk

stephan and the other supreme kids? I demand answers

4. NO K + J-  My favourite part of SM was Kenji and Juliettes friendship. All I wanted was to witness one more of their iconic witty yet deep convos and I would have been okay. But we didnt get that, nor did we get much of a development of Kenji and Nazeera’s relationship

5. the last two chapters in Warner’s POV were cop outs. Mafi used the equivalent of “and they all lived happily ever” basically. She probably knew that people would be upset about Warner’s POV being excluded from the main plot so she used the last 20 or so pages to hastily wrap everything up. We got a snippet of Warners head (if that) and There was no confrontation between the Anderson brothers (Adam seemed to cured of his PTSD after being tortured by his father??) I know we cant expect everything, but come on.

6. GENERAL

the writing style just felt glossed over; my favourite parts were the sections that repeated the lines from the previous books (good touch though)

Juliettes POV was barely there because of Emmaline or ‘Robo J’ I feel like we only got a glimpse into the J we know and love. The book just wasnt the same because her complex and poetic inner thoughts which Mafi usually portrayed so well just werent there. I find this the most heartbreaking. I kept waiting for a chapter of Juliette that wasnt tainted by something but I guess that it just wasnt meant to be

BASICALLY, (if youre still reading) I feel like this would be okay if it wasnt the finale or it had been split up into 2 books w/ Warners pov. I had to keep reminding myself that these plotholes would not be explained in the next book. There was also no character growth like there was in Defy Me, therefore I feel that Defy Me better showed the characters’ final developments (even if they were all wrecked in Imagine Me) 

I guess I feel that the readers and characters deserved more of a goodbye to the series than what they got. The characters (beside Kenji) just werent the same as they were in other books. My feeling is  that Mafi was under a time crunch and could only do so much in so little time to make everyone happy. Also, how could you possibly say a final farewell to such complex and developed characters? But it just feels like the whole changing Juliette into somebody else and not having Warners POV was a lazy way of truly coming to the end of their journeys. Almost as if Mafi couldnt even try.

It breaks my heart to say this after loving this series without fault: SHATTER ME fell at the last hurdle in the race to become a near perfect (in my opinion) series. I will always love SM but I suppose I just feel a little cheated out of the finale I believe the series deserved.

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

Anime Review: All Out!!

Gion Kenji, a first year at Kanegawa High School, is short, strong and angry. Sumiaki Iwashimizu, another first year, is tall, shy and unassertive. But when Hachioji, sub-captain of the Jinko rugby team, scouts them both to join, they soon find themselves bundled in with a whole mess of other students, freshers and experienced players alike, and all watched over by the intense captain Sekizan. Jinko’s rugby team is small, and despite a lot of passion and experience going in, their results are frequently disappointing. But when they receive a new coach named Komori, things ever so slowly begin to change.

In rugby, there is neither an ace batter nor a number one striker. To succeed, each member of the team must give his all. They must learn to play to each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses, and above all, they must be prepared to go all out.

(Yeah I know I can’t do motivational speeches, shush).

Of the myriad genres of anime I’ve watched over the years, one thing I had never seen before was a proper sports anime. I know exactly why; I don’t watch sport, don’t play sport, and as such, have little interest in most sporty media. That being said, I’m always willing to try new things, and there have been some incredibly high-rated sports anime out there. So of course I decided to go with the one which absolutely nobody cared about outside of a small but dedicated fanbase. Go me.

Okay, that’s mean, there’s plenty to like in All Out, but we’ll get to that. I actually decided to watch this for a few reasons. It was being done by Studio Madhouse, who generally excel in up front physical combat animation. And honestly, if I ever do start watching sport then rugby will be the first; I’m somewhat fond of the game and find it more exciting than most. Plus the whole team idea appealed to me, since for most sports anime I’d seen there was usually the focus on one all-star player. But you can’t do that for rugby given how dynamic the whole game is, so I was interesting in seeing how it would translate to good character moments.

Yeah, I know I have no idea what I’m talking about, and frankly in terms of other sports anime or sports media in general this is probably as generic as you can get. But I haven’t watched any. Therefore I had no expectations to judge this on.

So what exactly is my pure, unaware, innocent, completely unbiased opinion on All Out?

Sad to say, the weakest portion of the show is its animation. I like Madhouse and they’ve done some cracking work, but this was clearly a low-budget affair; very static and stiff movements during the slow scenes, and even during the games just a tonne of speedlines, panning shots and close-ups. I can’t really point to any real standout moment of animation, which is a shame.

But it doesn’t matter too much, partially due to the unique and expressive art style (a.k.a. everyone looks dang ugly), and partly because Madhouse did what Madhouse does best; it made the impacts matter. It sounds silly, but pay attention in every single big, bombastic Madhouse fight, in say Hunter X Hunter or One Punch Man. Part of the thrill and excitement comes from the impact; the very moment one person collides with another, and the sudden JOLT that comes with it. All Out may not be the most mobile, but that much it gets right; it’s easy to overlook budget cuts when you’re still paying attention to where the ball is, and when the sudden attack from out of shot shakes the camera and stops the whole movement in its tracks. It’s hard to describe, but it’s not exactly a new technique, in fact you’ll see that kind of effect in most good slapstick cartoons. But more importantly, you’d definitely notice if it wasn’t there. All Out’s players don’t have much in the way of movement, but they have definite power, definite weight, and definite presence in every move they make. That, in my opinion, counts as a success.

The music is less memorable, with the exception of a couple of fast, driving guitar bits during the games themselves. Even more driving are the openings, which resemble the kind of chants you might hear from the sidelines at a live game; they took a while to grow on me, but they definitely did in the end.

So, All Out caught me slightly off guard when I began watching it because I expected a few certain things. One: over the top rugby games. Two: Corny cheesy speeches about achieving the best. Three: Muscles. And butts. Lots of butts. But honestly, the show is rather slow, tranquil, charming, and definitely far more grounded in both presentation and characterisation than I could ever expect. And I just want to clarify that THAT IS NOT A BAD THING.

Even in 25 episodes we don’t technically get a lot done; the rugby team is built up from being not-very-good to actually pretty impressive, but there are no big tournaments (only one that is still a long way off in the distance), and really no big rivalries or major plot threads at all. That of course means that the series doesn’t end so much as, well, stop, and while it stops in a satisfying place there’s still a lot of stuff that can be done; in fact the final episode ‘formally’ introduces the big scary threat who is actually a pretty cool guy in his own right. In fact the Ryoin group are all rather fantastic, but they just barely get anything to do, which is a shame.

However I can forgive that, because throughout all the slow drama and stilted games we got some fantastic character drama. The show fully takes advantage of the fact that rugby is a team sport, and it throws as many little interactions, backstories and developments as it can at you, both in game and out. While Gion starts the series as the main(ish) focus, he honestly doesn’t get any more particularly special treatment than the rest of the team. A few of them, such as Oharano, Ebumi, Kifune and Ise get episodes devoted to them, while others such as Hirota and Matsu get little snippets here and there which build into their overall arc. It is of course a large team, and not everybody gets that much focus or character, but for the ones that do, we get to see their personal struggles and their own convictions, which the show handles very realistically and without defaulting to melodrama. Everything here is very believable, and everyone, even the opponents, are more than reasonable, or at the very least understandable. There is no true antagonist in the story; even the man-mountain Zanba at the very end is an immensely likeable guy, despite the Gambit eyes and the fact that he could probably break me between his fingers.

Even the non-players get some good development here. Komori, the team’s new coach, is a retired rugby man himself and he gets a lot of good interactions and character moments; he’s often tough on the team but is never overly harsh or cruel, which is a difficult balance to get with coaches sometimes. And we also see a few snippets from the team members’ families, or their advisor Yoshida. Much like the game it portrays, All Out is tremendously fair, never being too worshipping or too judgemental of any particular character. I like that. I like it a lot.

And then of course there’s Sekizan, who is the greatest character in the show. At first he seems like a bit of a stand-offish jerk, but as the show goes on the layers are peeled away from him and...doooh, I just want to make this guy happy! Plus he’s a phenomenal player with some of the greatest moments in the games. And he has ridiculous hair. I just friggin’ love this guy.

All Out is my first foray into the sports anime genre, and as a first outing...I like it. I’m hesitant to say yet if it’s really my thing, and I want to wait until I’ve seen more shows such as Haikyu or Hajime no Ippo before I can truly have an opinion on the genre. But for what it is, All Out was a very enjoyable ride from start to finish, taking a sport I really quite like and imbuing it with a lot of humanity, and a lot of heartfelt and awesome moments. And I can’t really ask for more than that.

My score: 7/10