Your Name: An Overhyped Fantasy

A few days ago, I watched the anime film "Your Name". I've heard about the movie on and off for the past few years, the way people talked about the movie was like it was the best movie that was ever made. Well, a few days ago I finally went ahead and watched the film, and honestly besides the visuals and music, which where fantastic, the overall story wasn't that impressive to me, and I'll try to explain why. 

The gist of the story was about a boy and girl who swap bodies, because of a meteor strike, and then later on it goes from them swaping bodies, to time travel, which felt like they just put it in, to make the movie more interesting towards the end.

Most of the movie, you learn about the girl and her life, where she live, her family, friends, and school, and then towards the end, it shows how her mom died, her dad leaving the family, and her and her little sister staying with her grandma. With the boy, besides him living with his dad, you don't learn much about him, besides the fact that he works at a restaurant. So when it came to learning about the two main characters, it honestly felt uneven. Besides the visuals and the music, I honestly don't know why the movie was hyped up so much. Because I'm sorry but I've seen much better movies when it came to themes of falling in love, and the struggles of being separated by distance. One movie that tackled both of those themes very well was one called, 5cm per second, it was a love story about a boy and girl, who grew up together, and after a few years, the girl had to move away, it showed them writing letters back and forth to each other, and showing their life struggles over the years, after they were separated. 

Going back to the film Your Name, it's just my opinion but to me, they didn't handle the theme of them being separated that well.. For one thing, they didn't even know about each other at all, and then all of a sudden they changed bodies with each other, I almost got confused at first while watching it, and sure they learned more about each other's lives, but in my opinion it didn't feel organic, them "falling in love". I say that because when they finally met up with each other, it felt like they barely knew each other. Another thing, the whole traveling back in time, besides for suspense, I didn't see a reason for it at all. I understand that love stories are popular, but at least try to make a decent movie, not hype it up so much, that when you finally see it, it feels like you wasted over 2 hours of your life watching it. The film Suzume did a much better job at love, not just romantic love, but family love and self-love too, when I was done watching the film Suzume, I honestly didn't feel like I wasted my time, yes the movie was long, but I enjoyed myself while watching it. With Your Name, I'm sorry, but I'll never watch that film again. 

Immersive and Intense: Unveiling the Brilliance of Cyberpunk Edgerunners

 

Photo by Mikhail Nilov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-wearing-leather-jacket-8107817/

Just finished watching the anime, Cyberpunk Edgerunners. I literally watched it from beginning to end in one sitting, and it's one of my new favorite anime's that I have seen. It has everything, amazing color, graphics, special effects, music, all the characters were all unique in their own ways, and an amazing story, that just kept drawing you in with each episode.

The show is only ten episodes, but somehow they managed to pack everything that was needed within all ten episodes, in my opinion, it was paced very well, it wasn't too fast, or too slow, it wasn't too slow that you wouldn't get bored, and was fat paced enough to keep you on edge, with each episode, making you anticipate the next episode in a heartbeat. 

It's based on the videogame, Cyberpunk 2077, but the story is set up before the events in the game, so basically if you haven't played Cyberpunk 2077 yet like me, then your fine, you don't need to play the game, in order to understand what's going on in the anime, Cyberpunk Edgerunners. Which in my opinion, was a very smart move. 

I've heard of this anime on and off for a while, but at first I thought it was overhyped, and since I haven't played Cyberpunk 2077 yet, I figured I wouldn't be able to watch the anime, but after I kept seeing some clips of it on TikTok, I finally decided to give it a go. So I doubled checked weather you needed to understand the story of Cyberpunk2077, in order to understand the anime Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and once I knew they weren't directly linked with each other, I decided to give it a go and watch it.

Literally from the very first episode to the last episode, I was completely hooked, emersed in the story, wanting to know what was going to happen to all the characters with each episode that I watched. It was honestly so good, that I don't want to spoil the story at all, that's how good it is. But I will say this, this is one anime I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys, anime mixed with sci-fi, cyberpunk, and sweet flavor of mystery and romance.

The way that the story is written and set up, once you think you know what's going on, at one point it completely flips, leaving you hanging, second guessing of what's going to happen next. When the story flipped like that, that's when I knew, that the story was well written. Something that I haven't seen in a long time. With all the characters, you don't necessarily get a backstory with all of them, but you still get a sense of who they are in a way. Making you care about the characters, and what will happen to all of them. 

Once the last episode was over, I immediately checked to see if there would be a season 2, and sadly no there won't be. It's a stand alone anime. Even though it's one season, and only 10 episodes, I would still recommend Cyberpunk Edgerunners. Sometimes, the shorter the better, and when it came to this show, it was the case. This is one anime, that I definitely rewatch again soon, and I would put it on my list as one of my favorite anime shows that I have ever seen.