In the online game "Planet," there is a powerful team of four players. This team goes by the name "The Akabane Family," and its members are a pseudo-family that only exists in the game. Although they aren't aware of it, these four players are actually a broken family in real life. A shut-in older brother. A high-achieving younger brother. A father who is not respected by his own children. A mother who neglects her own household. They do not know the warmth of family. They also don't know that the warmth of their online family is only a passing feeling. And most of all, they don't know they are a real family. Centered on the deeds of the Akabane Family in the online game "Planet," the story features battles against monsters, clashes with other guilds, and the machinations surrounding "Black Bird," the final objective of the game. The tale takes a major turn as it entangles the real world and this real family. (Source: Netflix, edited)
Nenhum episódio encontrado.
This was such a wasted potential This show had a very interesting premise, with some deep complex emotional and psychological topics, a nice story progression, a very interesting plot twist, with some relatively deep character development, just to throw it all away near the end, rushing into the finish line and disturbing their own established lore and logic. The characters are basically a family of strong players in a game, they help each other and act like a real family, but under the curtains they are people with miserable lives, using the game as an subterfuge to escape from reality, the main twist making it alleven more interesting to watch. If it wasn't good enough, the game it self also doesn't exactly turns out not to be as simple as it looked, with the family now being forced to fight not only to maintain their union, but also to potentially save the entire virtual world. Their motivations are kinda simple, but complex and well established, each one of the family members are trying to replace some aspect of their miserable lives with the in game family and features, unaware of whom each other are in real life, while trying to find some meaning for their lives. But then we get to the ending part. This feels like it should've lasted 24 episodes at least, or delayed the main conflict to a possible second season, giving more time to deepen the character's relations and insert more conflicts and twists, to better building up the final plot. Instead they just dropped it all out of sudden, and rushed into the end, to make into a one season thing, leaving a lot to be desired. Specially the threat to Virtual World thingy felt under developed, with several events near the end feeling out of place. It had a lot going for it, and they just fumbled. The worse part is that even if they made a possible sequel, it wont make any sense, they will be forced into a fresh start or something. They just wrote themselves into a dead end. This show made me love and hate it at the same time, from how wasted it was
Summary: "AI rules the world" in Ep 1 is fine as setting, but not in climax without development. Reading the synopsis, it looked like a heart-warming story of a broken family reunited via online game. However there is no such healing at all. It was good until Ep 5, especially due to the difference of art style between real life and game, but went somewhere else after the twist in Ep 6. Good character design (not only their looks, but also their traumen and accompanied behaviors) and animation, but it seriously lacks coherence in the story. It shares many subjects with SAO, but failed to justifyitself like SAO did. (For example, brain damage from headgear is accepted by everyone, and this show also borrows it. But there is not enough explanation here how AI can damage people in real world even though they are not playing that game.) The worst is that it is full of violent and unpleasant killing with detailed portrait of dead body. Not recommended to those who are looking for happy story, or well developed storytelling. Only for gore fans. I can't rate this below average due to the quality of the animation, but to talk about the story only, it's 2/10.
Really liked this anime, it puts the use of AI in an interesting perspective and avoids cliches. Wasn't expecting anything to be honest, but I was fully surprised, it started well (fun, easy to watch) and only got more interesting as the story developed (especially with the event of episode 6 it became even more interesting) The character design and animation in general are very beautiful and well done. I highly recommend it, especially if you are interested in the subject of artificial intelligence and game programming. I hope there are more seasons to come, because I watched this one in just one day.
To say that this anime is a mixed bag for me would be an understatement. On the one hand, it’s well-animated and has a pretty interesting visual design to its world and characters. They come off as distinct, both in the game world and the real world of the anime. On the other, it’s built on a pretty absurd narrative where four people from the real world who live in an extremely dysfunctional family also just so happen to form a family within the game world full of other players without knowledge of who the others are. It doesn’t help that it remains unclear to the veryend how they formed their in-game family, especially given the lead characters’ rejection of other bonds within the game. Yes, there's a small hint of how they might have gotten here, but it only invites more questions than it answers. On the one hand, it tells the story of a young man whose life is consumed by the games he plays and really gets into his headspace, giving you a deep understanding of why he chose to invest himself in the game PLANET and further deepening his character as the series goes on. On the other hand, virtually every other character gets an exposition-heavy backstory. Exposition seems to function as the main way to explain what happened in the past and, in many cases, what’s going on in the present. There’s a lot more tell than show in this series, which may explain why the characters are invested, but does little to invest watchers of this anime. And some of those characters that are central to plot developments feel like they get no backstory at all, in particular Hana Kamuro and Shigatera. On the one hand, there’s a really solid plot twist about halfway through this series and another about three quarters of the way through that kept me guessing about where things would go. It also includes some legitimately solid nightmare fuel. On the other hand, so much of the narrative and worldbuilding seems constructed around that heavy-handed exposition. We spend much of the series not understanding basic character motivations, which limits our ability to empathize or understand them meaningfully. Even when it comes to just establishing how the gameplay works, the series gives us little exposited statements from time to time, and largely just leaves the rest to our imagination. It yields some good fight scenes, but a fleshed out game this is not. So, yeah, it’s a mixed bag. It really doesn’t help that the ending is a bit of a clusterfuck, in terms of last minute revelations, emotional heel turns, and a reset for the ages. Perhaps that can all be explained by a moment just before we roll to credits, but if that’s where the narrative was going, then that just raises more questions. It’s strange how toothless the series feels in the end, seeming to undermine itself before credits roll. There are a lot of good ideas buried in here, but I feel like it's less than the sum of its parts, losing out on opportunities to make the most of its varied elements.
'Good Night World' is as wide as an ocean and shallow as a puddle. It heavily suffers from trying to fit too much into a short runtime. There's just not enough time spent on each thing that it does, and instead it all just ends up feeling like an amusement park. It keeps grabbing your attention with something, but before that idea sets in the story has already moved on and might never bring it up again. It seems that the story author was trying to cram in so many different cool ideas that would be good enough to develop into an entire episode oreven a whole series, but each of these ideas is just a single minute or two of one episode. I'm not going to pick this one apart because it would take way too much time. When you have 10 story twists per episode, there are plot holes. Many, many plot holes. This plot might as well be swiss cheese, and it barely gets saved by leaving everything vague enough that it doesn't become offensively obvious. It's just a complete mess that I doubt anyone would be willing to sift through. Additionally, when a story moves at the pace that this one moves at, almost everything becomes plot convenience. If you find yourself asking, "why?", then the answer is plot convenience. There's no rules to anything, and up until the very last seconds of the story it is still trying to cram in more twists. Despite everything bad that I could say about it, somehow it still has some impact. Even if those cool ideas are all wasted potential, they are still momentarily fun and exciting regardless. If you are capable of shutting your brain off, the story can be very entertaining. I would liken it to 'Future Diary', where despite breaking a world record for deus ex machina's per minute in anime, it can still be very effective at keeping you engaged so long as you don't question it. Instead of deus ex machina's, this anime breaks a world record for plot reveals/twists per minute. Sometimes the rules of good story telling can be ignored for the sake of entertainment. That's all I really want to say about it. From a technical standpoint (animation, soundtrack, VA, character design, art direction), everything is above average but nothing will stand out as memorable, very 7/10 in that department. I would recommend you to watch this anime if you aren't bothered by a confusing or contrived story, you like plot twists, and you like the idea of a dark psychological family drama. I would also recommend it if you are the kind of person who likes sad stories and cries easily because this one will probably make you cry. I would also recommend it if you like horror, because this anime is deserving of a horror/gore tag. Otherwise, you are going to want to be drunk/high if you plan on watching this. I suspect the writer might have been both when he wrote it.
In the ten-ish years I've spent critically watching anime, I've found that there's roughly two types of 'bad' shows. The more common type, and the less egregious, is a show that seems trashy, unassuming, and/or mediocre on the outset and that ends up being exactly what was promised on the tin; it's not upsetting because it ends up being exactly what it seemed like it was going to be. The other type, the type that is far more frustrating, is a show that fumbles its interesting premise and incredible potential only to fall and barely skid itself into mediocrity. Good Night World is the second kindof show. Pitched as a family drama exploring grief, trauma, and dysfunction, Good Night World sets up a show seemingly well-poised to deliver on exactly that premise. The first few episodes do a great job of highlighting the parallel lives of the real life Arima family's dysfunction with the picturesque VR Akabane family. The near-unbelievable odds of deeply hurt and damaged people all seeking the same outlet and finding each other in another life (of sorts) where they can embody their ideal selves is an immediately touching premise that easily pulls on the heart strings. If the show stayed grounded and focused mostly on that, I think this would go down as an all time great. It didn't, though, and it won't. Good Night World pulls a reverse of most works of genre fiction, using the promise of a family drama to tell a boring, kitchen-sink sci-fi story instead of the other way around. Viewers are promised "Bittersweet Family Drama" by Netflix, the only place to legally watch this show in North America, and instead get a derivative isekai-lite à la Sword Art Online and speculative fiction about AI that, because of the real world's technological growths, already seems laughably outdated and grossly disconnected from reality. Science Fiction, more than most tightly-defined genres, relies on an audience's ability to suspend their disbelief about (often) technological speculation. Works like Cyberpunk Edgerunners ask you to imagine a future where X things happened to get there and bust their asses to make you believe it. When Good Night World not only has outdated speculation that rings decrepit on entry, but misunderstands the function of real-world tech that's been tried and true in its function for more than two decades (or more than one decade for the manga), suspension of disbelief is not only impossible, but pathetically unearned. Good Night World has very little to say, and almost none of what it does is even worth hearing. As a narrative within these mediocre confines, the show still badly stumbles. The pacing is atrocious; the show could have used at least twice as many episodes to tell the same story with how fast it moves. Watching Good Night World feels like skipping all dialogue in a video game and only being exposed to what the characters say in the boss fights; it's nonsensical and its emotional beats never feel earned. The show is also unbelievably fond of fake-out episode endings and introducing new conflict that hadn't been established at all previously only to resolve it in less than an episode. There's so little time to get invested or sit with the implications of what the show's saying, as if the work itself is afraid of its fraying seams completely unraveling if it lets its viewers think about anything for too long. Avoiding specifics, the ending is somehow even less satisfying than every major misstep previously. It skips forward eight years to an epilogue that explains nothing and neglects to actually resolve the final arc's conflict. It's not that I expected any better, but it felt like one last kick in the teeth before the show fully whimpered out. There are different, better works that explore family dysfunction (see: Clannad), better works that explore AI and the implication of computers (see: Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiments Lain, Psycho Pass, etc.), and better works that explore fantasy isekai themes (see: Konosuba, Re: Zero, The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, etc.). This show is a waste of precious time with nothing interesting to say about its derivative sci-fi or its family drama. Pass on this.
Most people would drop this anime within the first 3-4 eps thinking that this is just another generic online game / isekai anime. Well, Don't. Just keep watching it. The story will take an unexpected turn after ep 6-7. And just when you think you've seen it all, the story will take another sharp turn and whirl into rollercoaster ride straight to hell. I'd put this as the 2nd best anime this season, right behind Frieren. 9.5/10 Watch it if you enjoy: ReZero, Summertime Rendering, From the New World (Shinsekai Yori), Steins Gate Dont watch it if you: got weak stomach or in mood for laid backanime
Trash, trainwreck, confused. I love B movies and nonsensical plots, but this is absurd. It almost feels like it's trying to be Serial Experiements Lain, but hopelessly falls short. I also get the impression it's really made as a cynical cash-in, but I can't explain why for spoiler reasons. Avoid avoid avoid. My first issue is with the key characters. This anime is set up to be about the 'family', but it isn't really. The mother barely shows up and gets no arc at all, the younger brother gets plenty of screen time but little to do. This anime is about an angry neet who hateshis dad, and the father in question who is a total b*stard. The in game family is around for half an episode, so all those cool clips you saw in the trailer? They're everything you get. If you want to see the in-game family work as a team and be a family you get roughly 15 minutes of this. My second issue is with the plot. It's nonsense, by and large. It drifts between various elements, adding layers and randomly jumping between them with little sense of flow. On at least one occasion it sticks with a storyline for most of an episode in a way that makes it really obvious there's a twist coming. It's taken ideas, and large chunks of plot, from other much better anime. Except not in a way that really makes any sense. My other minor issue is the fight scenes, which are embarrassing. There's lots of movement but little connects.
Though it delivers and entertaining plot-twist felt the narrative failed at portraying in more depth the connection between the characters; as the plot-twist is actually interesting and may have distracted the writers from focusing more on the relationships they were building. Which is a shame, as these relationships are the gadgets that make the story unfold. One never really gets too close to a character, making portrayals of characters shyful. Furthermore, the virtual world and its rules are not completely explained, which is also a shame as would have made the story more appealing. All in all, another average anime, the art is OK, not breakthrough, and itdoes not have memorable music.
A really unique anime. Short and sweet and covers the entire 52 chapters of the manga - a cross between SAO and Inception. Whilst some aspects seem absurd, I believe it suits the art styles and the extreme personalities of the characters. I really enjoyed this anime. Recommended if you want to watch something unique that isn’t your typical VR / game / hero anime. There are quite a number of unexpected twists. The art and animation is really quite enjoyable to watch. Not recommended if you like the typical storyline’s and plots (I enjoy these too at times, so not hating). If you’re afterthe handsome, mature, genius or OP MC, then this anime isn’t for you.
It was quite enjoyable to watch, the animations, voices, and drama were great to appreciate, but in the final part of the anime, it started to become confusing and didn't make any sense. Apparently, there won't be a second season, so it was a mediocre anime without a clear resolution. Anime with a focus on virtual reality games used to be cool at the beginning, but today, it's becoming increasingly tiresome and repetitive to watch. People may like it for its simplicity, but the animation and the integration of AI into the plot felt somewhat disjointed A 7/10 rating because it was straightforward and didn't surprise inany aspect. A mediocre anime.
Good Night World does a really great job of depicting the downsides and upsides of escapism, many being related to household issues which in this day of age becomes all too relevant, the way the A.I. is portrayed isn't far from what we have been able to achieve, and this is sad and frightening at the same time. I'm amazed that this is based on a manga that seemed to be ahead of its time with all of these concepts, it's surreal... but I digress, I enjoyed this anime more than I thought that I would, sure, it's flawed and at times gets to apoint where it seems to be leaning to cliches, but surprisingly was able to subvert some tropes that I'm used to. I recommend this anime because of how seriously it juggles these real-life problems.
Are a gamer or like gaming? Do you like World of Warcraft or similar Open world RPG? Are are struggling with real life? Do you often escape into the gaming world to avoid real life ? Are you having issues with family or people in general in real life ? If you are any of these, you will feel related and connected to this anime. The Anime following a teenage boy, who is the "black sheep" of the family. He is a gamer, no job, no proper education, and doesn't do anything else than sitting in his room gaming with VR, trying to escape the real worldto be with his "family" he befriended in game/online. The thing is tho, non of the players know who the people of this "family" is, and that they also struggling with their real life. Then one day, the boys father ends up in the hospital and the "family" in game get raided by another group of people in game, which ends up in a conflict/big fight and a virus within the game is being realized. The virus then infects all electronic devices. How will this end ? What will happen to the in game community? What will happen with the boy in real life ? Will his father be alright ? How does the virus effect him? Will he be trapped in game? Does he find a lover ? or maybe a close friend like most people do when they game online ? A lot of questions can be ask, and a lot of different outcome comes along since there are exciting plot twists in this anime. I couldn't stop watching this anime. There also are a lot of fun jokes within this anime as well, which has an adult like me make it even more enjoyable to watch. I really hope they will make a season 2. Cause i will defiantly be watching it on release day. That's why i'm giving it a rating 9/10. Ps. there is non spoilers in this review, has all of this is already explained in plot definition all over when you look up this anime.
Good Night World might decent anime TV to watch where the theme about programming, gamer, game developer, family, shut-in, real life, virtual world, and human-like AI. The anime focus on character driven where most storytelling character driven is really good, however, it lack of world building, skill explanation, and fighting scene. The characters have many personality, but a bit of cliche that you can found typical anime. Some plot twist is not make sense, like a green apple that not ready to eat. The character driven result in multiple POV (point of view) where it get interesting, but the viewer could get confused. Theanime could have been good if they could make scene more interesting and increase the stake. Many scenes have been easily predict. They could have add logic scene where the characters must solve a riddle but they focus on `emotion`. This `emotion` thing is something contradict with the anime theme where it should have focus on solving riddle where could get interesting. Focusing on `emotion` make viewer get upset too, an example (not spoiler), a guy want to save a cat in the bottom of bridge, a girl told the man that he might die, then the guy ignore the girl and going to save it, the cat successfully saved but then the guy falling down to bottom of the bridge, the next episode found out that the man was alive that went up to bridge, why is he alive? because the girl recommend the guy tied a rope to his body before jump to bottom of the bridge. This type of cliche used many time in this anime. Many potential wasted for this anime, but it's decent to watch for time being because there is no other anime to watch.
Didn't expect it to be so good. I've started reading the manga a few years ago but then dropped it after a few chapters because it seemed like the thing with family being together online will be the whole plot. I started the anime expecting to also drop it after a few episodes, relying on my past experience, but it really hooked me from the start and turned out to be much deeper. The characters are very well written. The relationships in the family felt real. There are so many scenes that show how three-dimensional the characters are. It's amazing. The plot is not what you wouldexpect and it's really worth the watch. Animation and character/environmental design is also really good and high quality. One of the best animes this season.
TLDR; Good plot, good premise but execution could be done better. I watched this anime in only a couple days but I definitely can say it’s enjoyable. The premise of a world full of AI and simulations with it being successful at exploring Trauma. I think the ability to show accurate plot twists and trauma whilst depicting varied and non linear perspectives on characters was really well done. However the first few episodes are tough jts tough to get into theirs nothing about it that innately hooks you in, I mean at first it just feels like another Isekai with a select few OP characters - I thoughtit would be about not becoming a shut in anymore or something along those lines. Instead their was an interesting psychological show that explores trauma and the effects of AI on society and how it all merges together the anime really really picks up around episode 4 that’s when it hits you - some characters are grossly underused but a few *SPOILER* deaths are explored really really well you actually feel pity and when you learn a certain character is an AI it completely shocks you then hooks you in. I think the anime could’ve done better at how it illustrates other characters but unfortunately 12 episodes makes it hard to world build a very intricate world with multiple characters. Certain characters are just completely forgotten about and we never learn anything about them or what happened to them- I think their was potential and more ways to explore said potential but all in all i think for what it was it was pretty good even though certain episodes struggled to really be all that captivating with certain scenes really dragging on
This is a series with an interesting premise and concept, numerous revelations, growing stakes up to shake two worlds collapsing into each other, ideas about the next step for humans or something, an anti-escapism message, and characters that do change throughout it. It should’ve been a good and quite praised series, and yet it’s not, why’s that? Inconsistent aesthetics The first and most superficial reason, yet true to these days, is that visually is not great. For a show about people playing a videogame, the game itself doesn’t look very engaging, the avatars look plain and some are not very different from the real people using them,the setting in the game is both typical and unexplored, the artwork, backgrounds and special effects in it look outdated for a 2023 anime. The real world looks more polished than the VRMMORPG that the characters play, despite being limited to a house, a hospital, and buildings, the artwork in the real world and the backgrounds in it look more detailed and updated than the virtual world, even the real character designs are more interesting to look at than their in-game avatars, how is that possible? I swear, in this trapped in a videogame sub-genre, only .hack//Sign did the designs properly, and that’s the oldest and one of the worse looking of them all! Uneven atmosphere For a series that tries hard to be a psychological thriller and at times even horror, it sure likes to mix the oldest, most simple, most generic, childish even, type of comedy, and a lighthearted adventure type of feeling during the game, and that clashes a lot with the pretense of a serious show about serious topics. Plus, just like the visuals, the in-game soundtrack and sound effects go completely unnoticed and aren’t impactful enough. Again, the real world just sound better, especially when reality begins to collapse near the end of the series. Voice acting is not very impressive on either side, but works just fine for what the series needed and was going for. Interesting concept and themes but bad writing and characterization Now on to some real issues regarding the writing itself. Superficially, Good Night World should’ve worked just fine, especially for our current times. It’s about game addicts, a very relevant topic today, that play a videogame using virtual reality, so the technology is up to date, if not advanced and a tentative look into a possible future, and the main ones are all a family, so it also tackles into the internal issues of a dysfunctional family, it has an ever present and catchy element of an advanced AI developing itself to the point of becoming semi sentient, and threatening to take over the world, and a villain that thinks that that’s what’s needed in order for humans to take a needed next step in evolution for both the species and the world itself and that kind of stuff, eventually the two worlds and realities start to converge and collapse into each other and a lot of people die either mentally or both mentally and eventually physically, as it usually goes with this type of premises, so the scenario is both familiar and on theory exciting, as the stakes are seemingly incredibly high, one of the main characters is directly responsible for everything that happens, and having someone that tries to fix past mistakes it’s always catchy and relatable, and everyone is messed up in one way or another, which well-handled can potentially lead to powerful character development and arcs. The problem lies in the writing itself and its poor handling of everything. Overreactions First of all, if you thought that people on previous videogame anime took their games seriously to the point of making you cringe, think again after you watch this because this anime takes it to a whole new level. Over here there is the inceptive of money alright, and a big prize at that, but only a few characters are really interested in that, others just want to escape reality within the game, and get extremely offended when someone say that ”it’s just a game” and take it on a personal level. Regardless of their motivations for playing the game, everyone acts like psychos, which is all well as far as showing how extreme some real people from our real world can take it, and as long as the payoff is good, but over here you never feel that that’s the case, as most characters stay the same without changing in the least, while the only few that develop do it in a way that feels like character rewrite instead of organic development. Weak characterization The main characters themselves are very messed up, a shut-in nini that only cares about his unreal family and that only knows how to say shit and fuck, his brother, who is completely different in-game than he is in reality, a chronically online mother, away from the family, or so it seems, and a neglected father who is honestly a complete piece of shit and only makes matters worse. In short, they are all awful and you don’t really want to follow them, at least not without knowing if they change and grow to be better by the end of it. And as it turns out, none of them do, or at least not in a way that feels plausible. The older brother is the one with the most focus in the whole series, and the one you feel will be the hardest to develop, yet he takes most big revelations straight and changes completely by the end of the series, although in sudden ways. For such a character, he sure can adapt and grow as a person rather fast, and that is not very believable, especially for someone that never tried to fix his “shitty reality”. The younger brother is completely different in reality than he is in the game, and although that’s fine and a good representation of what can happen in real life as well, once you get to know his real self you notice how he lies to others and himself, and that he seemingly is aware of everything that’s happening. Just like his older brother, he doesn’t even try to do something to fix the situation, making him a big hypocrite with an unbelievable change with no buildup throughout the series. The father is plain awful, just how much can you mistreat your wife and kids, act completely different in-game, be responsible for numerous deaths, create something terrible without taking proper care of it, and that leads to a big catastrophe, and still be forgiven and redeemed because of “reasons” and “character development”? Well, this character sure can’t, as he is consistently awful throughout the whole show, until he does the most unbelievable 180 at the end of the anime and gets the most undeserved happy catharsis I’ve seen in an anime in my whole life, man, and I thought Domain of Murder was bad at that. And the mother is completely wasted in the anime, she is never looked into, she reappears in the real world of the series out of nowhere in her presentation scene, she reconnects with her sons just fine making it seem that the problem wasn’t that big nor very difficult to solve in the first place, the anime hints at her being possibly cheated on, adding to making her a miserable character, she knows the way younger girl that’s interested in her husband, with the connection between them never being cleared, and does absolutely nothing of importance throughout the series, nether in-game or outside of it, she is just there, not even playing the role of emotional or moral support of the family that ties it together in the end, that’s something that the men, forced by the writing, do by themselves, so she is relegated to a character that does not do even that. And that’s only for the main ones, if you want to talk about the secondary characters, one is a psycho obsessed with money, others like to distress by being assholes in-game but remain completely unexplored otherwise, the main antagonist wants to erase and rebuild the whole world while being a literal kid that is not fleshed out nearly as much as needed so where the hell does he come from with that, others take their in-game role very seriously and are perfectly fine with dying for his cause without being fleshed out in the least, and there is even one that gets a lot of focus for a few episodes, that acts like a spoiled and bratty child, doing what she wants only out of a superficial and childish “love” for a person that she doesn’t really know about and that only used to be edgy along with her, and for what? To have all of her backdrop story to be revealed out of nowhere as a completely fabricated lie before literally being erased from the story, talk about a complete waste of time and pacing and also, bro, what the hell am I watching? Ridiculous revelations That one particular character that turned out to be an AI is just the prime example of the numerous instances where the series wants to catch the viewer by surprise with a big revelation, or a newly introduced element and topic, a big plot twist that changes the series completely, or a cliffhanger that makes the audience impatient to watch the next episode. It was done so much to the point of having no downside to take everything in or connect with the characters, or let them be explored and developed in a way that feels organic, and above all, it was done in a way that nothing seemed anticipated in any way and everything felt like an asspull. The best way I could come up with to describe the show, is if .hack/Sign was written by JJ Abrams, a guy known for stuffing his products with numerous plot twists and plot points just to surprise the viewer without ever caring about consistency nor logic. And apparently I’m the only one who thought that a series with broken people trying to connect with others through a videogame, something that they couldn’t do in the real world with their real families, an advanced AI going crazy and affecting the real world and people, and a dead girl resurrected in a way, in the form of an AI, and being hidden in a game as one of its main objectives and reasons for its existence, with a girl falling in love with the protagonist and trying to reconnect him with reality, and anti-escapism messages, is similar to that anime, guess that shows how much it was forgotten. Inconsistent stakes As it’s usually the case with badly written fiction, side characters receive the worst outcomes for the sake of making it seem like there are stakes, while the main ones go practically unharmed. Secondary assholes? They get trapped in an eternal limbo of mental torture until they fucking die, but the main ones? They can find a solution that has practically no way of working, and yet it works only for them. Other unlucky side characters die when the two worlds start to collapse into each other and onto themselves? The main ones go completely unharmed with no problem, even the ones that are considered unimportant for the making of a new, better world or whatever. Asspulls and cheesy writing And why is that? Well, aside from being the main characters, it’s because they get to keep the super powers they have in-game in the real world, or develop even better and more broken new ones in a hurry without much explanation other than the very short and not very clear sequences that are supposed to excuse what’s happening on screen, even though the show does spend a good chunk of time in exposition about less relevant stuff that goes nowhere, during previous episodes. In case they don’t, they’ll find an improbable solution just fine, based on the power of love or some corny shit like that, don’t worry about that. Immature presentation And of course, all of that comes accompanied with an edgy presentation. Messed up characters, everyone swearing, yelling at the top of their lungs, gory imagery, no subtlety whatsoever. For a series that wanted to explore serious themes and topics, it comes off as a pretentious edgy shocking show for teenagers instead. Conflicting ending and messages The finale is the typical happy one that seemed to have fixed everything with a reset of sorts, which is lazy in itself, but even then the anti-escapism messages are not well delivered, as the characters change completely in ways that don’t feel organic, and if the very last scene means what it suggests, then they didn’t really actually manage to escape, so what was even the point of the whole thing? It affects the main message because of that, you can’t have a proper message if the character arcs which are the base for it aren’t well handled, and the ending goes against and contradicts said message. Rushed pacing Perhaps, the result of every issue besides the presentation is the rushed pacing itself, which tried to cram a 52 chapter manga in a single season tv anime series. Pluto managed to do that but only by adapting everything into hour long episodes, at the expense of accessibility and enjoyability, while Good Night World clearly tried to do the exact opposite thing. Based on one review I read, it seems that even the source material has this issue of having a short yet very overcomplicated and overstuffed plot with poor handling, but it’s still clear that the anime tried to do a speedrun of the whole thing and threw as many revelations and plot twists per episode as it could in order to come off as exciting, engaging and addictive, and just like it happened to The God of Highschool some years ago, it backfired horribly because you can only do it so much before even most of the casual viewers are unhappy with your product. Conclusion As a whole, I found it to be an ambitious and semi memorable show with many interesting ideas and good intentions within a rather complex and layered plot, but poor decisions in its handling, pacing and progression, ending, tone and presentation, that ended up ruining the whole thing. Interesting to give it a try for its themes and topics, but a not worth watching complete mess as a whole. I’d suggest watching .hack//Sign instead, if you are a veteran viewer that can stomach very talky and slow moving plots.
While it's not perfect it does have a good message about the importance of family and while there were a few things I wished had happened it was not bad. Was a little confused with some things and trying to figure them out but felt best to enjoy it and not overthink it. all in all I thought it was not bad would have liked some more episodes but is fun to watch if you have free time. Kind of reminded me of similar anime but also different in its own way. Art was nice the characters were each interesting in their own ways.
Trainwreck. Usually we ascribe a negative connotation with this word but there is some morbid curiosity to it that we can't help but see it to the end. This was Good Night World. The show gives you the premise in its very first episode. A dysfunctional family are all unknowingly playing the same MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game) and hanging out with the same party even though they are all estranged in reality. How will they react once they know who each other are in real life? How does the show allow the family to organically find out for themselves? Then the show adds anotherlayer. There is a secret end game boss in the MMO but this isn't a regular end game boss... what sort of twists awaits the party when they challenge this boss?... But that isn't all. The show gives us another character aside from this family that has a deep bond with one of its members. How will her interactions affect the boss fight? And the future of our edgy MC? Is she the antidote that will heal our edgy MC spiritually and mentally? I have to admit, the interaction of Pico and Ichi gave me mad nostalgic vibes. I think anyone who have played MMOs and formed strong bonds in-game can relate to how authentic some of the experiences the characters go through. Of course, it's not like everyone have had their extreme experiences to this degree but we can still relate and reminiscence about the friendships in our own MMOs. Watch a bit further, and the train really goes off the rails. I say this in a completely neutral tone. I sometimes enjoy trainwrecks. I think the original writer really took the meme "never let them know your next move" to heart. The plot just continues to escalate in its twists and turns and seem to change genres on the fly. Eventually even the dialogue becomes unpredictable. You could have a really serious conversation and then the characters start talking about balding. The amount of random off-topic remarks is quite frequent, which, to be honest, made me laugh quite a bit since it's just so out of left field. The show can be absurdly funny, borderline non-sensical, seemingly riddled with a wild turn of events, but weirdly relatable at other times. Are many going to be turned off by the crazy amount of turns this show went through? Absolutely. Are there a ton of poorly explained themes and sequences throughout the show? Yep. Did I enjoy it nonetheless? Oh yeah. Sometimes you just have to see the trainwreck through. How is the train going to land? What beautiful tragedy is in store for us and the characters? You really have to see it for yourself, while fully knowing it could be one of the worst things you've ever seen too. PS: Oh, and be ready for inconsistent animation and art. In some scenes, the character or setting is beautifully drawn while other scenes you wonder if they ran out of budget and let an unpaid employee finish some of the artwork off on their free time.