Media Reviews

Episodes Watched: 3/47

As of writing this paragraph I have just finished episode 3. So far it's been fine, not huge on starting in the present then next ep going way back in the past, since it tends to confuse me a bit but it's not that bad for now. Also didn't expect to start to relate to Nana (Komatsu) which is interesting, so I know whenever I get to a "soul shattering" part it'll hurt more (which is exactly what I want lol).

So far I don't really understand why so many people are just so rude to her though? I get she can be a bit clingy, but she only has well intentions. It only makes sense due to her history, specifically everyone she loves ends up leaving her to go to Tokyo. And they know that she has a tendency to fall for people she shouldn't, especially people who aren't good for her and especially after situations that leave her feeling helpless and vulnerable, so leaving her alone just seems like a bad idea. Her friends had left her alone for one second, and then her previous "boyfriend" (using that very lightly since it was obvious the married man was just using the highschool student to sleep with) shows up, again after she's vulnerable from being yelled at by Shoji. (Don't even get me started on Shoji) The whole time I was just saying to myself "NANA NO, RUN NANA, RUN AWAY, DON'T GO DOWN THAT PATH AGAIN". It seems like she was able to let him go for now though.

Also the fact that Shoji seems to want to date Nana so much yet refuses to support her? Like dude maybe you should figure out why you even want to date her in the first place. I get that he feels like he isn't able to, and he's not obligated to taking care of everything she does, but pushing her away and constantly telling her to be independent without him just makes it seem like he doesn't even want to put in any effort. That just screams "I want to sleep with you but I don't actually want you to live with me or trust me with any sort of responsibility that involves you." Even once she does stay over for one day (before living with the other Nana), she spends the entire day cleaning his apartment and making him food, only for Shoji to again push her away, seemingly ungrateful or at the very least uncaring for anything she's done out of her love for him. It's the constant pushing away (of his girlfriend remind you) from Shoji that makes no sense imo. Why have a girlfriend if you don't even want her around? (Other than just to sleep with her of course, according to his "I'm just a guy, I can't help it" excuse.) Idk I'm not too fond of Shoji so far, he's just giving me bad vibes. I'll continue watching to see how things play out.

Episodes Watched: 5/47

I did the thing again where I watched a few episodes and then took a break for like a couple months but getting back into it now. Seems like this part (ep5) focuses on the other Nana (Osaki).

Again with the weird "telling time in reverse" thing that always confuses me. But I'll try to power through it. So far (writing this paragraph while paused at the middle of ep5) we have themes of "everyone is leaving everyone" once again. Coincidentally also for Tokyo. Not sure yet if Nana's bf Ren implied that he would essentially be breaking up with her by leaving, since he just states "So you can live your life however you want now". This was iirc after a discussion about Ren not minding children while Nana not wanting any as it would interfere with her music career. Also yeah Ren leaving his band for a different and more successful one is not cool™. I really don't trust him either.

Nana seems adamant about living for herself, but still worries that she isn't able to provide Ren with what he wants. This was a little confusing, since she was just going on about how she mostly lives for herself, but maybe I'm just misunderstanding. It could also be one of the reasons that they end up no longer being together. She has this plan about staying and going to Tokyo a little bit later on so she doesn't immediately cling back to Ren and end up being his housewife which also didn't really make sense to me as to how she came to that conclusion, she could still be in another band while there? IDK. What surprised me is how Ren actually did seem to feel sad about leaving Nana, I was sure he wouldn't care. I feel like Nana's plan of going to Tokyo, no matter how long she would've decided to wait, she's going to run into Ren again and all those old feelings are gonna come back in the worst way possible.

I'm realizing that I've only watched 5 episodes out of 47 so I think I should condense my writings a bit more.

Episodes Watched: 9/47

I'm assuming ep6 was a recap, I was a bit confused at first because it started exactly like the first episode so I thought something was wrong at first but it was actually fine. It's sort of like a re-watch of the first episode with a little bit of different perspectives along with the knowledge about both Nanas backstories. It was actually interesting because you now understand their motives and how they are sort of opposite to each other. Nana Komatsu was told to stay home to build herself up and wants to go to Tokyo for her boyfriend. Meanwhile Nana Osaki chose to stay home to build herself up and is going to Tokyo for herself and explicitly not for her ex-boyfriend. At some point the thought of "They should swap places" crossed my mind. I'm not sure if what I'm trying to say makes any sense because it's difficult to put it into words, but it somehow makes sense in my brain at least. Komatsu's doing it mainly for love with success on the side, while Osaki's doing it for success with love on the side.

Eventually Shoji asks Komatsu if she wanted to live with him after she told that she was living with Osaki, solely for the reason that he and Junko see Osaki as a stranger and don't trust Komatsu with her. I'm not sure what else they expected though. Again, they know she has a history of trusting others too easily, and yet somehow didn't expect her to end up living with a "stranger" despite their constant pushing her away and refusal to help her at all. What else was she supposed to do when everyone is telling her to figure it out herself? The whole dynamic between Komatsu and her friends+boyfriend just feels like "Hey go figure out everything yourself, don't rely on me at all and also none of us are going to help you at all and we know about your history with attaching to the first person you see but surely you'll be different this time." "Okay I managed to figure things out myself!" "No not like that. Why did you do it that way and not the way we imagined you to?" It's just so confusing what they expect from her, and occasionally it ends up with Komatsu overthinking and believing she's doing something wrong. Also I think I officially hate Shoji bc he just sends so many mixed messages.

Seeing the Nanas getting along together is nice, but it's also making me realize that whatever is gonna happen later is gonna probably hurt. Hachi is a cute nickname though, I assume it's like the Japanese equivalent of calling a dog Fido or something (upon some googling it seems so). I'll probably try referring to Nana Komatsu as Hachi mostly because it's faster and easier to type, and that's what most of the fanbase calls her to differentiate between them. Also having the name Hachi also mean 8 is amusing, since Nana is 7. Their room number is also 707 (Nana), and in Japan 7 is considered an unlucky number, hence Hachi's numerous references towards the "Demon Lord" that she claims controls her life which I think is pretty funny.

Osaki hearing her ex-bf's music in the store and seeing his face plastered on the wall made me feel bad for her. You can tell she still isn't completely over him, and misses him despite her best efforts to not think about him. I had sort of called it that she would run into him or his band soon since his band seems so popular it would be difficult not to. I felt even worse for her when Hachi reveals that his band is her favorite, implying that she won't be able to get away from him easily. Osaki seems to hide her concerns pretty easily though, not sure if for her own good or for Hachi's.

When Komatsu leaves Shoji after their dinner date and refuses his request for her to stay the night, he seems mildly upset and confused, but I'm just sitting here like: What else did you expect from someone you constantly pushed away? You pushed so hard for her to be independent, and now that she's independent you suddenly wonder where she's gone? Ughhh I hate him sm. Also, Hachi's line of "It's okay if you stay at Sachiko's tonight" confused me a bit. I know they use Sachiko as a running joke, but it's weird coming from her after she was having her doubts about Shoji earlier on when he was late from work, believing that he was cheating on her and wondering if that's what it felt like for the wife of the married guy that she "dated" felt. IDK it just felt like a weird thing to say if that's a serious concern that she has, but maybe I'm just looking too much into a joke. Anyways I shall continue on.

Episodes Watched: X/47

I started watching AOT while I was in middle school. The little edgelord I was back then was super into gorey anime, and AOT just so happened to be starting, and somewhat gorey. Totally perfect for my little brain. I really enjoyed the action scenes of the first couple seasons though. I loved seeing the rooftop running, the ziplines and the flips and spins, defeating enemies that were huge. It was very cool.

Then the drama aspect hit, and I enjoyed that as well. The walls are broken and the titans are coming in? Eren's a titan shifter? Female titan? She's one of ours?. Again, very cool at the time. Another thing I enjoyed was the time period that it was "set" in. I use set in quotes because we learn later on that the place they lived was actually just behind in terms of technology I don't normally like anything medieval related at all. I hate the whole "knights and castles and king and dragon" stuff. But this felt different, it felt less fantasy in a way. I have no idea if the time period is even the same (because I suck at history) but basically I enjoyed it too.

So I'm enjoying it so far, and then our crew finally escape the walls and see the ocean. Felt like the end at that point, right? Wrong; WW2 time. As someone who doesn't like history, I didn't enjoy the whole story derailment of it basically being similar to WW2. So I think that was part of what made me stop watching for a bit, and just because I know that would've bored me to death. I'm not sure what I expected to be outside of the walls, but WW2 surely wasn't it. Maybe I was too oblivious to see any of the subtext though, since I was too distracted by all the cool action scenes.

Eventually as I saw that the final season was starting I gave in and caught up. And yeah, it did get a little boring in the middle there. Just the entire time boring political conflicts and gun standoffs. The drama was there, but where was all the action? Where are all the ziplines? The giant swords? I need something here. This is also where they had changed animation studios, so the once unique art style of AOT slowly became more and more generic as the episodes dragged on. Even if there was an action scene, it didn't feel nearly as fluid as it had before. But zero disrespect towards the animators of either studio, the new art style did develop over time and the action scenes did get more uhh action-y as well. I'm just dumb and hate change lol.

Sorry about the lack of details, since again I don't remember as much as I should. As of writing this, I have just finished watching the final episode. I do enjoy that the action and ziplines did eventually return. I don't really have much to say about it. It was just an ending I guess? It's better than what I was thinking of though; I had assumed literally everyone was going to die. But I was almost disappointed at the potential that the whole series was just Mikasa's dream, glad that wasn't the case though. I'm mostly just glad my favorite character, Armin, didn't die lol.

Speaking of characters, I feel like the anime did do a decent job of giving everyone their own stories. Since I essentially grew up with AOT, it almost feels like I knew them as friends. So when some of them died, it hurt. Which is surprising, since I usually don't feel that much when watching anything. Some of my favorites are Armin, Sasha, and Hange, but Levi eventually grew on me as well. The whole cast pretty much I enjoyed, and seeing some of them get along at the end was nice. I did cry a few times: Hange's death, Armin's almost-death (the final season one where he's being suffocated, not the crispy one. This was because that "death" was during the time period when I had stopped watching for a bit, so I knew he was going to live in the end), Levi's entire squad death, and most notably Sasha's death. Hange's death made me sad because she had managed to live for so long, and seeing her happiness as she dove into the rumbling, and not even being killed by a titan either. All while her comrades watched. Again, it felt like an old friend dying. Armin's final season almost-death made me sad mostly just due to seeing him yelling at himself, telling himself he was worthless and useless, and the "I hate you! I always have!" got me good. It just hit too close to home I guess. Levi's squad makes me sad mostly because he's been through so much, every time they showed up it made me feel bad for him. I'll get more into Levi in a bit.

Finally, Sasha's death, the one that hurt me the most. I'm not really sure why honestly. I guess since she was one of my favorite characters from the beginning, always full of nothing but happiness and hope. When she was finally outside of the walls, it was nice to see her be able to try all these new sorts of foods that she loved. Even getting the attention of someone else as well, who's food went seemingly unappreciated until he met her. He would even go against his teachings as a Marleyan to even consider being together with her. But then this rat child named Gabi shows up and shoots her. She doesn't even get to die while fighting. And to make matters worse, Sasha's family unknowingly takes their child's murderer in. And the now-mourning food guy who had a crush on Sasha serves them food. He realizes and chaos ensues. That was a whole thing. But anyways, what I'm trying to say about this is that it's interesting to see the long chain of effects that Sasha's death had on everyone and everything, at least for a little bit. Also I hate Gabi.

Levi was a character that I didn't really understand the appeal to at the time. I mean he was rude, and seemingly overpowered. It wasn't until after I had watched the OVAs about him that I started to enjoy him though. Again, every time they showed his old squad it would make me feel bad for him, he's been through so much and somehow still goes on. The part at the very end of one of the OVAs, where he returns from his expedition without the rest of his squad, and Petra's father is seen holding a letter she had written about thinking about marriage, I assume to Levi, and asking where she was, broke my poor lil heart. I'm not sure if it's because of Levi, or just that my tastes have changed, but I now enjoy the trope of "usually stern and slightly rude character actually has a bunch of trauma". *Squints at Edgeworth from Phoenix Wright* hmmm... Anyways, I enjoyed the OVAs and they made me appreciate Levi's character more.

Going back and listening to some of the music from seasons 1 and 2 made me really miss the old vibe of the anime tho. Even just seeing the old green capes and brown jackets makes me nostalgic. Again, back when it was just ziplining around and fighting giants and doing rad stunts. Before it became mostly just human vs human holding a gun to one another for no reason. Also that whole royal bloodline thing while interesting was also a bit confusing, heck a lot of the stuff in the later seasons was too confusing for my smooth brain. I just feel like it wasn't what I signed up for I guess. I miss the first couple seasons, but that also could probably just be the nostalgia talking, since it did have a huge impact on me due to being one of the first animes I've ever watched and waited for a new episode on tv every week. Felt like the good old days ig.

Overall I think the series was fine. I did get to a point where I was just going through it with the thought process of "I just have to trudge through the rest of this to see the end" since I wasn't gonna let my 10 years of waiting go to waste. I almost caved in and watched the final episode before it was dubbed, and even before that I had almost went and just read the manga, but I managed to be patient and now it's finally over. It was alright.

As previously stated, we watched this in preparation for FF7 Rebirth coming out soon. My friend states that they're not sure if this movie is considered canon, at least the same canon as the current remakes are in, but it's at least probably canon to the original FF7, which I think is great bc I loved it. I know it's very likely to be impossible, but I hope we get to see more of Kadaj Yazoo and Loz somehow later on. Maybe as like a secret boss or something idk.

One of the first things I noticed right away was the voice actors. This is because in FF7 Remake they changed pretty much everyone's voice actors, so I was already used to those guys and it made it a little difficult for me to recognize who is speaking without directly seeing them talking and I'm already pretty terrible at recognizing voices in general. But I didn't mind the voice acting that much. Actually there were a couple voices that I actually enjoyed more than their re-casted counterparts, namely Vincent and Sephiroth. I know we haven't really seen Vincent in the remakes yet, but he was recently announced to be voiced by M*tt M*rcer. While I don't dislike his voice, I feel it's very same-y and you hear it and it's just "Oh it's M*tt M*rcer". And I pretty much irreparably know him as Levi from the AOT dub. I'm sure it'll be fine, but personally I like Vincent's voice in this movie a bit more. I was also surprised when I heard Sephiroth's voice. I'm used to his remake voice where it's slightly off-putting but calm enough to make me think "I'd listen to Sephiroth ASMR to help me sleep"; It's really nice. But in this version, his voice is slightly deeper and a bit more growly, which feels a bit more threatening imo. I love both voices he has, but I feel like the old one fits him more. Also, we were both surprised at Cait Sith randomly having a Scottish accent?? In the original FF7, we establish that Cait Sith is a robot and later on learn that he is being controlled by Reeve of Shinra. So like I had assumed when he spoke it was Reeve's voice being spoken through the robot. But in this movie we actually hear Reeve at one point, so It makes me a little confused as to whether or not Cait Sith is at least a little sentient and has his own voice or Reeve just puts on a Scottish accent while puppeteering his robot (or even some sort of voice disguiser in the robot?).

Another thing I noticed was what I like to call the "2000s stank". This is especially seen in the fact that everyone has a flip phone and in everyone's outfits, most notably Barret's. I thought it was amusing, but I also really liked the type of aesthetic it provided. When I was first being introduced to FF7, I had assumed by the title having "Fantasy" in it that it would be like Fire Emblem with the castles and the knights, and I am known to dislike that type of aesthetic. But I was surprised to see a more sci-fi aesthetic. It's really nice, and this movie taking place a couple years after the end of the original game also adds a slight post-apocalyptic vibe as well, which I liked a lot. I was a bit worried that they were gonna go into a basic zombie style with the Geostasis sickness, I'm glad they didn't. I can see some people not really into this type of aesthetic, especially since it kinda feels very different from the original FF7, but I didn't mind and enjoyed it a lot.

Now onto characters. Again, everyone's voices were different in this dub, and along with the non-lipsynching because of it being a dub, both of these aspects made it a little difficult for me to connect to the characters in the same way that I have in the Remake. So to me it almost felt like an alternate-universe spinoff, which I didn't mind since it was fun. I always enjoy seeing Cloud (he's one of my favorites), but I forgot that this was post FF7 Cloud, so he's a bit more opened up than he was at the beginning of the games. His outfit was neat (Actually I've seen all of these outfits first through Kingdom Hearts, so it was interesting to see them from their source material. Both this movie and KH2 were in development around the same time, so It's neat that they used these outfits for them in the game.) and his motorcycle is really cool. I love all the cool stunts and the retractable sword storage is really cool as well. I think Nomura enjoy's putting Cloud on his motorcycle (and motorcycles in general) bc there was a lot of that which I didn't mind at all; I loved it. Also this is not just this movie but Cloud in general, but I think it's hilarious that one of his skills is just slicing through buildings and rubble like they're nothing. It's so unnecessarily extravagant yet convenient and I love it.

Reno and Rude were pretty funny in this movie too. Reno is one of the ones that actually has the same VA as the Remake (he's the same VA that also does my favorite KH character Axel/Lea) and both him and Rude seem a bit more silly than usual, at least more than what I remember from the original and Remake. I don't mind that either, since they were very funny in the movie and provided some comedic relief.

The last characters I'll go into are the Sephiroth Remnants: Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz. And I thought Seph was freakish until I saw these guys. I love all of them sm. I think Yazoo is my favorite out of all of them because I really like his hair and he sort of reminds me of Riku from KH, especially Dark Riku. although I wish they would've spelt his name like "Yazu" because the current spelling is silly and reminds me of kazoo. I love how they're all cracked freaks with tunnel vision. Kadaj's dual sword is amusing, since it could allude to technically being the same length as Sephiroth's Masamune, just split in half. Meanwhile Yazoo gets a gun and Loz gets his uhhh shock-y arm thing, both very cool as well. Their designs are great and I like how they all almost look like Sephiroth, since they are essentially Seph's version of Terra's Lingering Will from KH. Nomura has reportedly described each of them as aspects of Sephiroth's personality, where Kadaj: Sephiroth's insanity and instability, Yazoo: Sephiroth's calmness (described as allure), and Loz: Sephiroth's playfulness (described as childishness). I've always loved that trope of someone splitting into multiple aspects of themselves, bonus if each aspect is turned into its own person. I can't really put into words why I love these three little freaks so much but I just wanna stick em into a container and shake them vigorously like a salad.

The overall story I thought was fine. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it felt like a spinoff story. It wasn't too complicated, especially if you've played the games before, but it was also simple enough for me to easily understand what was going on without getting confused (I get confused very easily). I get that it has to be short enough to fit within the time limit for a movie, but again I didn't mind it, it was fun. I was a little disappointed to see every other character only towards the end, but I guess it makes sense not to see them much since in the story Cloud was actively trying to avoid them. But it's fine because that just means more screentime for Cloud and the Remnants lol. Also at the very end, where Cloud gets swiss cheesed by Seph with his sword I was surprised he was still alive after that, especially after seeing it take only one poke to kill Aerith, but I guess she wasn't built the same as him and didn't go through training to be a soldier (not to be confused with SOLDIER). Speaking of Seph, I always love when he shows up bc he's literally a jumpscare every time, and the evil smile he has constantly is so threatening imo. And I always love when his music starts, not just because it's him™ but also because the song is a banger.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie. It felt like a spinoff and I loved all the characters and the fight scenes were really fun as well. I hope to see the Remnants again in the remakes (but probably won't) bc I loved them. Good movie. I enjoyed it and would watch it again.