Anime

Does that mean Mento and I are allowed? Sure, sure...

Added 4 hours 35 minutes ago
Log Horizon
It just so happened that I've unconsciously watched about half a dozen anime about people being transported into "game-like" worlds, almost every time by chance and without reading the synopsis online, even though I can't really call myself a fan of this concept. The comedic ones somehow fulfill their purpose, while the serious ones usually suffer from superficiality and a simplistic plot.
This title turned out to be the closest to a certain serious quality standard – I liked how the world was realized and developed, from small details to global themes, and how the author managed to present a synthesis of realism with virtual conventions; I also liked the fairly well-developed characters of some of the characters. Perhaps the 24-episode series helped with this, but this also creates a problem – the narrative is very jerky. Here we have some information about the world, here we have a little bit of the main plot, and then we watch for five episodes in a row as the guys attend balls and have boring, not very plot-driven conversations at tables, and all this is seasoned with active glorification of the main character, which is not uncommon in Chinese cartoons, but here it looks completely unnecessary and contrived. Then we watch for another three or four episodes as random people wander around aimlessly, and then we listen to a secondary character giving a monologue for twenty minutes about how he sucks up. Here we fight, and here we make a few slice-of-life episodes with a festival. Why not?
I'm not against fillers, slow pacing, focusing on alternative characters, and all that, but here it looks like the author never figured out what style he wanted to present his story in – jumping from one thing to another, it's interesting now, and then it makes you want to drop this garbage, and then it's interesting again, and then you want to drop it and forget about it.
This duality is what prompted me to write this review instead of just removing the title from my "to watch" list. I can't even recall a similar rollercoaster of good and bad quality.