Urgh.. my eyes. These opinions are just so.. unpopular. Be warned, below are my genuine thoughts vented as rants and I’m pretty sure these opinions might be popular in some sense which flips the theme inside out, but nevertheless, take it with a grain of salt.

Before I start, I’d like to thank both Eggsandwich04 (KS Blog) and Raven (Raven’s Nest) for the tag, I was unconciously waiting for my turn to do the tag, so I was quite elated when I received this tag. But then some stuff happpened, and I’ve delayed doing this for quite a while now. So, I’d like to apologise for taking soooo long to get into this.

Now, let’s get started.

Popular series I don’t like:

Sword Art Online.

Would you believe me if I say that this is the poster that made me started to watch the entire SAO series, and eventually finished it? I was amazed by the design and seemingly “cool” protagonist that everyone seems to look up to, and didn’t mind even if there’s a heavy “harem” element and how bad the critics are on it. I wanted to enjoy it, I really did.

But when the author deliberately added R-rated scenarios in almost every season just to justify Kirito’s righteouness and evoke hatred towards the antagonists, I’ve grown to dislike it. These simply weren’t necessary given so many other challenges, hurdles that can be created in the setting of their world with just a bit more of an effective storytelling.

I hate this kind of emotion-manipulation-plot and frankly, I think both Kirito and Asuna deserve a better storyline to develop in, which if it had happened the other way, I might’ve thoroughly enjoyed SAO.

Popular movie I like, but everyone seems to hate:

The Anthem of the Heart

I loved the ending. The theme of expressing oneself has always been portrayed through different stories, by different authors, with different emotions through different medium. But most often, it is the ability to make the audience emphatise and understand the unspeakable feelings inside the heart that makes that story worth watching, reading or listening to.

The Anthem of the Heart wasn’t exceptional at this, but the way the main lead, Naruse comes to term with her curse or how a not-so-main-main-character Daiki learnt the importance of both maintaining and swallowing up his pride were satisfactory to watch. Both of these together, gave a nice ring to the ending itself.

Love triangle where the character didn’t end up with the character I wanted:

Ah, unrequited love, how I loathe and love you.

If you look closely at the poster drawing above, you’ll notice one of them is looking away from the front, hiding his face, and seemingly aimlessly tagging along them as if he’s just a passer-by. No plan, no purpose. Unreachable.

Until they lent their hands to him, until the guy leading (Suwa) prompted the female lead (Naho) to reach out to him. Even though Suwa loves Naho, he still wishes for her best, for his friend’s best by uniting them together, discarding his own feelings.

The truth is that, I’m very well aware that she’d be happier with Kakeru (which she did in the original series) but it’s this conflicted feeling where Suwa has poured so much effort in bringing them together that makes me want to root for him even more. Even though he did succeed in an alternate universe, he knows that he couldn’t really replace the one she loved in her heart, and well, that is just so bittersweet to watch.

Popular genre you hardly watch:

Ecchi.

It’s a genere in japanese anime and manga that reffers to erotic but not abruptly sexual content. It can show full to partial nudity, including nipples, cameltoes, panty flashing, grabbing boobs, but never exposed genitals, and is often displayed in a humoresque way.

Urban Dictionary

Now, don’t get me wrong. Konosuba did quite well to pull its humour off with this genre but in many other anime, this element is only added to boost up the fanservice and could be heightened to a point of annoyance (*start coughing* No Game No Life *ends coughing*). If I wanted these, I would have just opted for hent another genre that one would have heard of or seen at least one upon entering the anime community. This brings me to my next opinion:

Popular show or series I can’t get into:

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma

This screenshot is taken from first episode, first season of Food Wars!. There are only a few shows on cooking that gets high rating, and Food Wars is probably the top of them all, but all that’s hindering me from watching is the ecchi genre in it. I’m not sure how much is the extent of it, and well, I just don’t want it to ruin my experience watching the show itself.

So, I still have some mixed feelings on this but for now, I don’t really plan to watch it.

Beloved character you don’t like:

Riko.

Riko is in short—annoying. Although she is able to keep her cool under dangerous situations and made some clever judgements but in certain times, her enthusiastic and obliviouness to danger irritates me. It’s like her character is made to be smart, only to hopeless gets into unnecessary troubles because of her curiosity.

I’m well aware of the balance that the author might strive for between brain and brawl with Reg, but I can’t really discard her reckless actions and the consequences it brings just because for the sake of character development. However, she did change my mind a bit when she cried in the end of the third movie, Dawn of the Deep Soul (sequel to Made in Abyss) where no one else does. That empathy alone, would be worth watching for the rest of their adventure.

Popular show or movie I have no interest in seeing:

Game of Thrones.

When the world was criticising how bad its ending was, I was there in my corner watching the cast ensemble of ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ goofing around, solving crimes and just bonding. ‘The Mentalist’, ‘The Last Ship’, ‘The Good Doctor’, ‘House’, ‘NCIS: LA’, ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Scorpion’ were also quite some interesting tv shows that I watched back then but now I hardly watch any and given the commotion around GoT’s ending, I’ve pretty much lost interest in it.

Naruto, Bleach, One Piece.

Yes, the first big three, simply because they are too long and I didn’t really start to watch them from a young age.

Popular show or movie I prefer over the book:

Paper Towns.

“I stand in this parking lot, realizing that I’ve never been this far from home, and here is this girl I love and cannot follow. I hope this is the hero’s errand, because not following her is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Adapted from the novel by John Green (who also wrote ‘The Fault in Our Stars’), I enjoyed the movie itself more than the novel. Although it’s not that famous, but I really adore the chemistry bond between the female lead (Cara Delevigne) and the male lead (Nat Wolff) along with his two goofy friends, in the adventure that they have. I brought the novel after watching the movie, and damn, I think the movie left a greater impression and is more mesmerizing.

The quotes, the songs, the music, the camera angles, the cutaways, their face-to-face dialogues, slight change of expression inside were all just so fitting and ended up elevating the mood that cannot be achieved by just reading the novel.

Popular anime I prefer over the manga:

I don’t read manga for some reasons. (ー∀ー；)

Nominations:

And.. that would be the end of my tagging. Now, the three of you are it! No pressure, no rush, just keep the spirits going if possible. I look forward to it!

Last notes:

Well, this has been fun and it’s not bad at all to do this every once in a while. So, if you feel like it, keep the challenges coming, I’ll gladly accept any of them, any time. As always, thanks for reading!