High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World (2019)

High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World is an anime based upon the light novel series. The season is 12 episodes long. It follows seven high school prodigies who are transported into another world due to a plane accident. They were already big shots in the real world, to the point of ridiculousness. They’re either moguls or expert doctors or a high ranking politician. Basically, they’re anything but a normal high school student and stretches the believability quite a bit.

In the new world, they are found by a small village. The seven easily adapts to this new world and uses their smarts to help the village. They were already overpowered in the real world, and so are even more overpowered in this new world despite not gaining any additional abilities. If you don’t like your characters to be overpowered without putting in the effort, then you won’t like this anime, as it hits all the cliches of the genre. In the beginning, there isn’t as heavy a focus on the fan service as the anime restrains itself. It’s still there, just not in every opportunity. A few more episodes in and then it starts throwing fan service at many opportunities, ticking off yet another box in the generic isekai genre checklist.

With seven characters, we were initially treated with a quick overview of each one. However, with so many characters, naturally it can’t focus on all of them all the time, so we cycle through each one as they work together to overcome the various obstacles. It tries to portray them as geniuses able to easily overcome others by their abilities, but given that we were introduced to them by being told how clever they were, it can feel superficial.

Due to the characters being overpowered, you cannot take any of the villains seriously. For one thing, no matter what, you know that they will be easily taken down. The second thing is that these villains have all the stereotypes and tropes of the genre, but deliberately dialled up to eleven, so it’s just not much fun watching them when there’s no real challenge. The villains exists only to be curbstomped by the characters. That is to say, there is no originality and everything becomes predictable and cringey to watch. 

Whenever each character shows up and does their thing, they are very good at their own specialities. Although being so overpowered means that is crosses into ridiculous and cringey territory. They supposedly didn’t get any powers or enhancements entering this world, so they were already like this in the real world, capable of superhuman feats. With no build up or seeing them “earn” their abilities, it ends up reverting back to a generic wish-fulfilment anime. Also for a team of seven that is supposed to work together, we are just told about their teamwork and see the results, without seeing them work together much since it’s mostly each character going on their own way to do their thing.

The anime goes for the direction where the characters are going to change the world. They introduce technologies from their own world which is much more advanced (several hundred years in fact) to this medieval-ish era. It’s portrayed as them liberating the people, allowing them to have the collective responsibility, freedom and advantages of a democracy, although it can swing too far on being overly idealistic and positive. It doesn’t help that events, character personalities, dialogues and everyone’s body language are melodramatic and highly exaggerated.

The problem with the characters’ plans on bringing their advanced technology into this world is that it’s done on such a fast pace. What would normally take hundreds of people and a lot of planning, is done in a few days, from the gathering of the materials to the construction of the technology (which is super advanced even in comparison to the real world). That’s not to mention the moral aspect. The anime doesn’t touch on this but still gives off the vibe, when these advanced and overpowered technologies are given to people, they are prone to corruption and temptation. Do they really want to introduce so much advanced technology in such a short period of time and destabilize the whole world?

While there is an objective that the characters are working towards, the way it gets there feels unfocused. It jumps around between characters all the time, and it’s really jarring when in one scene they mercilessly take over another area, while in the next, a character is stressing over a mundane event such as a date. It’s not paced very well in this aspect. It’s trying to tick all the boxes of what a lot of successful anime has already done, but doesn’t do anything unique to make itself stand out.

Overall, High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World is a mediocre anime. The isekai genre, which has gotten quite saturated at this point, can still be good. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them. The characters are too overpowered and the story doesn’t do a great job at evenly covering each of them to make them interesting. We’re just told about their special abilities, and then they go about using it to change this new world that they have entered, forcibly changing it on a fundamental level. Flip the viewpoint and they’re very much like invaders or terrorists pushing their ideals and methods on others.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy Pointblank w/ Peacemaker (Deluxe)

Review:  #754

Name:  Pointblank w/ Peacemaker

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Legacy

Year of Release:  2022

Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 3)

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Pointblank transforms into a Cybertronian race car, with a unique color combination of red and teal.

He looks pretty good from the front and sides, but the back is gappy and reveals the hinges used for robot mode.

In terms of size, Pointblank is pretty decent, surprisingly so given that he also combes with Peacemaker.  Pointblank is actually somewhat hefty for this size class.

In addition to the exposed hinges at the back, the transformation also leaves a gap in the middle, which is quite disappointing at this size.

Pointblank comes with Targetmaster Peacemaker, which in gun form can peg on top of the spoiler at the back.  Unfortunately, Peacemaker was originally designed to form the engine block but this gimmick had to be dropped due to budget reasons.

A strong vehicle mode, the major flaw being the back half of the vehicle being too gappy.

PEACEMAKER:

Peacemaker is the Targetmaster that comes with Pointblank, which is always nice to get a bonus little figure in the Deluxe size class.

There are a lot of efforts in order to make the price point though, and the major one is that Peacemaker is comprised of three pieces, and his is very hollow.

He also lacks any sort of articulation, which is fine for something this small to be honest.

To give you an idea of how just small he is, Peacemaker is smaller than both Legion class and Micromasters.

Nevertheless, the minor compromise of a more hollowed figure is worth it for the additional play value it adds to the set.

TRANSFORMATION:

Pointblank has a simple transformation but one that works quite well.  The front split into halves to form his shoulders and arms, and these are probably the most interesting part of the transformation due to the various joints and twists and turns it requires.  Otherwise, the back unfolds to form the robot legs, rotate the waist and you're pretty much done.

ROBOT MODE:

Pointblank has a really classic G1 look to him, with the big blocky proportions, but still having enough athletic proportions to keep him modern.

For a figure that included a Targetmaster, and had to cut gimmicks to reduce costs, Pointblank surprisingly doesn't feel like he had much cost cutting given that he doesn't have that many obvious hollow parts.

The head sculpt is good, but nothing spectacular here.

Size-wise, Pointblank is once again fairly decent for his size class.

In terms of articulation, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles, so the usual standard stuff.

His only weapon is Peacemaker is gun form, which is basically folding up the three sections of Peacemaker together.

Pointblank can hold Peacemaker in either hand, and there is actually another 5mm post in Peacemaker that suggests that he could plug into Pointblank's arm, alas, this is not to be as it was another abandoned gimmick.

In gun form, Peacemaker can also store on Pointblank's back.

The shoulders can be iffy in terms of the range it allows his arms to go, it can only really move up / down or rotate.  Some flex inwards or outwards would be nice.

A strong robot mode that's a lot of fun to fiddle around with.

OVERALL:

Pointblank is surprisingly good, and the inclusion of Peacemaker makes this a nice package (instead of selling Peacemaker separately).  Both modes are quite solid, and while there has been some cost cutting, mostly in Peacemaker, they're not too detrimental, although it is a shame that some of the gimmicks had to be cut.

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The Promised Neverland – Season 2 (2021)

The second season of The Promised Neverland is 11 episodes long. The first season took place at the orphanage (known as the House to the children), where they discovered a horrifying secret. As a result, they managed to make a daring escape, but now they are in the wide open world, and the scope massively expands. It’s all uncharted territory here, and as expected, the second season is completely different given that the children are not confined to a small area anymore with only the one purpose of escape.

Mainly following Emma and Ray, the two eldest, and smartest, members of the children who had escaped, they are now trekking through the forest with the demons as their pursuers. They’re well prepared with food and clothing, but woefully unprepared for what lies outside given it was impossible for them to find out. As a result, everything they see is new, and the same goes for the viewers. This season lacks the tense creepier atmosphere of the first but amps up the mystery and intrigue.

Surprisingly, there are several big revelations early on. The children find out more about the world that they live in and what had caused it. Their knowledge was that it was a relatively peaceful world, so how did it come to be like this? The answer isn’t going to be mind-blowing but it is a good enough explanation to keep things going. It continues with the theme of characters not being who they visibly are, having secrets and other motivations.

You’ll probably wonder how the children are going to survive, and how they are going to ever return to stage a massive recovery operation to save the rest of their brothers and sisters that they had to leave behind. Naturally, they get some help, they get to learn how to survive out here, and they get to learn how everything works. However again, not everything is as it seems and it gets to the point where as the viewer, you will always be paranoid about every little thing that the children comes into contact with.

The various teases that it made in the first season are revealed in full by the middle of the season. It does feel a bit quick as a result, and it wasn’t a surprise when it happened. The surprise will be the how. This worldbuilding is the best part of the season. There are a lot of information presented and it takes a while for the viewer to digest and then realize the implications. From how the currently society works to the ramifications of what they are doing.

The pacing is fast with the season never stopping in one place for long. That’s the other surprising thing, the first season had slow pacing for the most part but here, if you thought it was going to dwell on the characters spending time in the forest and slowly gaining their feet, then think again. Time passes fast, and so we never get to see how the characters slowly adapt. As soon as they find a safe place, they need to move on to their next objective. This can make it feel like it’s glossing over several important elements, until you realize that it did this in order to focus on even more important elements.

Emma is a relatively simple character. She and Ray doesn’t really change too much in terms of personality and their morals. Both can be naïve and idealistic but that is what makes them likeable. Other characters though… they’re harder to understand. It’s a guess at their motivations which does mean that some characters felt like they’ve suddenly changed personalities or lost their morals.

Surprisingly, the season wraps up the whole story, hence when it ended up rushing things so much in the last few episodes. In the process, there are an enormous number of plot holes. It swings too much to the idealistic side to the point of stupidity and not caring whether it made sense or not. It introduced elements that does not feel like they belonged to the world, clashing with what we already know. It wraps it up by trying to have the same big emotional impact as the first season’s finale, but it fails on all counts just because it did not take the time to properly set things up. It ends up being quite disappointing and the reason for this is that the studio decided to go on their own and not follow the manga at all, cutting many plot developments, hence the shift in tone and direction.

Overall, the second season of The Promised Neverland had a lot of promise. It carries it at first in the first few episodes. Unfortunately, it then decides to fast forward everything, where it jumps from place to place, rushing all the way to the ending. It’s a weird decision to do this, given that it is so unsatisfying and the change in direction and drop in quality was very noticeable. Characters change personalities and motivations on a whim, and it takes on not only an overly idealistic direction but also something very stupid. It’s a shame that the series was ruined in such a way, it’s better to think that this season never existed at all.

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Undertale (PC)

Undertale is a 2D RPG but it’s unlike any of your typical RPGs. It’s a unique take on the genre as it is silly and doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It’s filled with jokes and plays on the tropes of the RPG genre. The graphics are a simple 2D style reminiscent of the NES era (aka pixel art) and don’t let that fool you, its gameplay can be even simpler than games from that era. It plays in a 4:3 aspect ratio though so it is somewhat weird for a modern game to do this.

The game has a quick intro to familiarize the player with the setting, which is basically that there are monsters living beneath the ground. The player character (whom you can name) falls down a hole and into this world, so they need to traverse through the undergrounds to get back to the surface. The beginning of the game immediately sets off alarms that this is not your typical RPG. It has a weird tone but in a good way, and it quickly settles into its own unique identity.

It uses a lot of humor to set itself apart. From the way that puzzles have signs nearby to tell you how to solve it, usually with some sort of ironic sentence, to the villains which can either range from creepy or really nice monsters. You never know what will come up and so every part of the game can feel unpredictable with its unexpected developments. The humor is not for everyone, as it leans more towards poking fun of RPG tropes but does it in a really in-your-face way that can get irritating after a while.

The gameplay is really easy to pick up too, given that you only ever use three buttons in addition to the D-pad. Those three actions are confirm, cancel and pulling up the menu. You can equip items to boost your stats, and gain experience to level up. However, all of these feels secondary to the story it tells. The combat system is also simple at first glance but has many unique elements of its own. You can opt to attack your opponent, whereby you need to land a move bar in the green area to deal the most damage. When the opponent attacks, there is a bullet hell minigame and if you manage to dodge all the projectiles successfully, you don’t take damage at all.

Then there are the other non-violent options. Every enemy can be killed… or not killed. Which is a really interesting take. Obviously, killing every enemy is the easy option, but this also plays into the different endings the game has, which adds a lot to the play value. Your actions will influence the story and change it. Defeating an enemy will give you experience points to level up. However, because the game is seemingly so random, sometimes you just don’t know when it is serious and when it is not, and you tend to forgive its simple “puzzles” and gameplay because it’s so refreshingly different.

Apart from the unconventional battle system, where it’s usually just filled with gimmicks that’s different for many of the major bosses, everything else about the game is really generic and simple. The puzzles are easily solved, the dungeons or map are so so. The unique selling point of the game is its humor, its characters, and its music. Those elements complement each other but it's definitely not a game for everyone due to how it presents itself. It can get hard too during some bosses if you’re aiming to kill them instead, or in general, just trying to survive their attacks during the bullet hell sequences. The final boss can be difficult in this aspect so it’ll surprise you.

The game isn’t long at all. It takes around 4 hours to complete even if you’re only playing for the first time. If you’re playing blind, then your first ending will probably not be the good one. It gives you a hint afterwards though and playing through the second time with the goal of getting the better ending, while already knowing quite a bit of the story and characters, gives it a fresh look. The game is a lot more fun and engaging this second time round and while the vast majority of the game stays the same, at the end, it tacks on a big chunk of content. Once you complete that, then the true final boss battle begins, and it is extremely good. That story is a lot deeper and nuanced than you first expected, and it evokes a lot of strong emotions. This is why the game is praised so much and it leaves a deep mark, as your thoughts will keep returning to it.

Overall, Undertale is a unique game. To be honest, the gameplay is simple and bland, and the humor can wear thin fast as it gets predictable. However, the story may seem generic and straightforward at first, but it goes much deeper than you would expect. Unfortunately, it can put a lot of players off but persist to get through to the best ending and the story, the music, and the characters, will win you over.

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