Reviews for Ex-Arm

"Ground-breaking." Ex-Arm is an anime that is largely misconceived. Look at all the people saying how godawful the writing and especially the animation is. However, they couldn't have been further from the truth. In reality, Ex-Arm is a visionary masterpiece with little to no flaws. Every single person involved with the anime's production was extremely passionate about it, and they put a monstrous amount of effort into making it incredibly profound and compelling. As a result, Ex-Arm has become the greatest Sci-Fi series of all time -- and possibly one of the greatest things mankind has ever created. PERIOD. ...... Now, let's get serious for a bit. Ex-Arm isoriginally a Sci-Fi manga written by HiRock and illustrated by Tonya Komi. Although not exactly amazing, the manga of Ex-Arm is actually quite entertaining from what I have seen myself. Along with good art, it offers some interesting concepts that are executed decently for the most part. The anime adaptation of Ex-Arm, on the other hand, is a completely different story.

The plot of Ex-Arm follows a high school student named Akira Natsume, who is dissatisfied for possessing no remarkable abilities and wants to change himself for the better. Unfortunately for him, though, luck doesn't seem to be on his side. One day while trying to save a girl from a group of delinquents, Akira is hit by a truck. But instead of dying, he wakes up to find out that 16 years have passed and he has turned into a mere brain stored inside a superweapon.

And then everything goes horribly wrong, if it hadn't already.

It's a no-brainer to say the main issue with Ex-Arm is rooted in its animation. After watching this anime, my standards for animation have become considerably low, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. Ex-Arm has one of the most awful production quality I have ever seen in any piece of media, not only anime. Just show a clip or two to someone who hasn't heard of what it is, I guarantee you that they are going to think it's made as a joke. After all, looking at the animation, it's really hard to believe this was made with serious intentions.

Ex-Arm's CGI is spectacularly horrendous. It feels like the animators learned how to do CGI a few weeks ago and decided to experiment how much they had learned. And to be honest, it just might be true. Cars, trees, roads, buildings -- every single object of the show looks awfully made; some of them were most likely straight-up taken from stockphotos and other similar websites. Everything else seems like they were animated by a bunch of amateurs. Actually, never mind. Saying that would be underestimating actual amateurs. Ex-Arm is much worse than that.

I didn't know there could be bugs and glitches in anime, but Ex-Arm has proven me entirely wrong. Very bizarre bugs and glitches appear in the animation from time to time, and they are honestly a sight to behold. Unbelievably awkward zoom-ins and zoom-ups are a norm in the show -- they never serve any actual purpose. The shot transitions are a complete mess too; many of the sequences proceed without any sense of rationality whatsoever. And surprise, surprise! It is not the fault of the manga.

Action is the place where Ex-Arm reaches its peak. There are some shockingly hideous fight scenes in the show that break the laws of physics. The character movements are unnatural even when they are just walking or shaking their heads, but it becomes even worse when they are taking part in combat. The anime also likes to use fog and shaky cams a lot during the fight scenes for some reason, and it unsurprisingly looks horrible. Surprisingly though, the choreography isn't actually that bad, but why will it matter when everything else is completely unsalvageable?

The character designs are originally decent in the manga, but the anime downright butchers them. In particular, the 3D characters always look like they are having a stroke or something. As I mentioned earlier, their movements are unthinkably unnatural, and their faces are deprived of any kinds of emotion -- I get genuinely scared by looking at them sometimes. Occasionally, there are instances of attempting to convey emotions on the characters' faces, but it simply ends up looking even worse. And guess what? Even something as basic as lip flaps aren't animated properly.

Now, you might be thinking why I specifically said "the 3D characters". Well, because there are also some lovely looking 2D characters in this CGI anime, who continuously appear in the same scene as even lovelier looking 3D characters! How wonderful.

This inevitably brings up the question: What led to the creation of such a gargantuan disaster?

Apparently, the director of the anime, Yoshikatsu Kimura, is a live-action filmmaker who has never worked in anime before. Prior to being the director of Ex-Arm, he had no experience with animation at all, so this show was basically doomed right from the beginning. What's even more ludicrous, however, is that Kimura apparently refused to work with people who are actually experienced in anime, and decided to retain his previous team who didn't have any experience with working in anime either. In addition, he spent most of his budget hiring stuntmen just to shoot motion capture, and thus had very little money left to do everything else.

And as you would expect, a show that was doomed from the beginning somehow became even worse. Far, far worse.

This raises another question: How did this show get the green light to begin with? It baffles me to think that everyone was perfectly fine with putting it on TV. I just can't imagine that anyone with half a brain and properly functioning eyes thought it was good idea to air this crap. As we have already established, there is literally not a single thing about the animation that deserves any praise; it is objectively valueless. And still, a fair amount of money was spent (read: wasted) on making this show and it was released as an anime for thousands of other people to see. Bravo, Crunchyrolls!

Okay, we get it. The production is complete garbage. But what about the story? What about the characters? Of course, to nobody's surprise, Ex-Arm fails outstandingly there as well.

As I said before, the concept of the series is actually interesting. I honestly think it is a somewhat unique take on the Sci-Fi genre, and given proper directing and execution, it could have been turned into something actually good and interesting. But obviously, the anime doesn't have of that. Due to the budget's ludicrous misuse, major corners are cut in the storyboard, and "major" isn't nearly a strong enough word here. Simply put, the anime takes everything good about the manga and completely gets rid of it.

There is a detail in the manga that contributes to worldbuilding? Cut that out. There is an elaborate monologue that adds more depth to the character? Cut that out. There is a plot point or element that provides a better understanding of the story? Cut that out. There is a conversation between the characters that makes perfect sense? CUT. THAT. OUT. Make sure to cut as many corners as possible, even if it makes everything unbelievably stupid and nonsensical. We have to compensate for my brainless spending, you know?

There is barely anything in Ex-Arm that could genuinely be called "storytelling" or "narrative". It is one of those shows where a lot of things happen in every episode, but you don't have a single clue as to why and how they happen. Furthermore, it has some of the most mind-boggling plot twists I have ever seen in anime -- mind-boggling for how stupid and predictable they are. Honestly, if the standards for writing are this low, I might as well be one of the greatest authors to ever exist. Hell, probably an online story generator could write something far better than this. And I repeat, it is entirely the fault of the adaptation. The story actually makes sense in the manga. Million times more sense than the anime, at least.

Silence is powerful, but Ex-Arm takes that a bit too literally. Several action scenes, where something playing on the background is more than just necessary, are barren of any music. You can only hear the characters making awkward breathing and panting noises, and on two or three occasions even worse, there aren't any noises. Everything is left completely, utterly silent. No tune, no melody, no sound effect, no breathing -- no nothing whatsoever. Nothing but pure silence.

Again, breaking the laws of physics is apparently child's play for the characters of Ex-Arm.

The occasional sound effects and tracks used in the background are also meritless; saying they are "uninspired" and "unoriginal" would be using the words too lightly. The score is repetitive as hell; two or three tracks are played over and over again for the entirety of the show. The ending song is barely passable, but the opening song is awful and sounds like an amateur cover of a 2000s' boyband song (though I gotta admit that I kind of started liking it ironically after a while).

If there is one thing to praise Ex-Arm about, and I think it is quite literally the only thing, it will be the voice acting. Most voice actors of the show are actually very competent and have worked in various anime before, which is apparent through their performance. But as they say, you can't fix something that is already broken. And Ex-Arm is far more than broken; it is crumbled to the point of no return. So, despite the involvement of several talented seiyuu, there are more than hundreds of extremely awkward monologues and conversations due to the poor excuse of a script. Now imagine how many more there would be if there wasn't a cast of experienced voice actors.

In terms of enjoyment, I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Ex-Arm. Occasionally, I was laughing my ass off because of all the wrong reasons; at other times, I was contemplating suicide. Initially, everything about the show was so laughably bad that I had a great time watching it, but the "novelty" wore off very quickly. It took only 3 episodes for the anime to stop being funny for me, and it instead became very painful to watch. I might have even started losing my sanity at some point. At best, Ex-Arm is ironically funny; at worst, it's complete torture.

In a way, Ex-Arm is truly ground-breaking. It completely breaks the limit of how atrocious the production quality in anime can be, and will go down in history as a fantastic example of what you absolutely should NOT do while animating a piece. Ex-Arm lacks even the most fundamental aspects of animation that make animation, well, animation. Despite having a decent source material at hand, it consists of a storyline that is sheer nonsense and characters that rival cardboard cutouts in terms of dullness. It is irrefutable how marvelously bad it is.

At the end of the day, Ex-Arm is a disgrace for everyone. It's a disgrace for all the people who worked on it, it's a disgrace for all the people who spent money on it, it's a disgrace for the original creators who had to see their work get so badly butchered -- it's a monumental failure in every regard.

Calling Ex-Arm an anime is an insult to anime as a medium. It's just offensive. Utterly offensive.

In the 1993 blockbuster "Jurassic Park," Ian Malcolm confronts John Hammond and his scientists over their genetic resurrection of the dinosaurs. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." Words to live by, but as it turns out, all the scientists in the world couldn't account for the possibility that dinosaurs would be, y'know, hungry. Yoshikatsu Kimura, a live-action filmmaker, stated that his upcoming show "Ex-Arm" would give audiences something never before seen in anime. Yeah, we've certainly never seen a travesty like this before. Like John Hammond, Kimura lacked foresight to recognize a badidea. Unlike Hammond, Kimura, along with fellow inexperienced collaborators, lacked the relevant expertise to cope with an already-dire situation. Here's how to derail your anime project in 4 easy steps:

- Step 1: Bring In People Who Have No Experience In Anime.

Yoshikatsu Kimura is not a director. Well, not for anime at least, and to call his efforts on Ex-Arm "directing" would be an insult to the profession. His live-action resume doesn't inspire confidence either, with only a handful of B-rated local martial arts movies to his name. How this man landed a job like this is beyond me.

Visual Flight is not an animation studio. The staff have barely any animation expertise, with most of their work centered around creating character models and environments. Most notable is their involvement in the video game "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice," although having the wrong credentials doesn't mean shit. It's like asking a Biology professor to teach a course on Physics just because they're both sciences.

Ryo Tomisaka is not an animation compositor. This role is reserved for those capable of seamlessly blending in animation, backgrounds and visual effects in the same space. Tomisaka is no specialist in this field, instead only having done general design work for a now-defunct company.

All these people sound like a perfect fit, hire them! What's the worst that could happen?

- Step 2: Misappropriate Your Tiny Budget.

Two key concepts here: "Misappropriation of Funds" and "Tiny Budget." Crunchyroll's production committee is responsible for both. They stacked their bets on an untested rookie director, and allotted too few funds to prevent the inevitable shitstorm that would occur.

Kimura is the second big culprit. Treating Ex-Arm as any other live-action production, he contacted a stunt team, whom he had worked with on past projects, to shoot motion capture for the anime. It's quite an impressive investment, given that hiring stuntmen for mo-cap doesn't come cheap. Typically it's up to the animators to perform the movements, before making the necessary changes in post. But the reason why animators normally perform their mo-cap in-house is, drum roll, because they're animators. Naturally this presented an issue for Visual Flight and Tomisaka, who have all this movement data but lack the skills required to make that choreography make sense in animation. And even the parts that avoided the mo-cap treatment are now worse off, since so much cash was splashed on the stunt work. The production staff put all their eggs in one basket, and things were about to get rotten.

- Step 3: Panic.

Realise that your ineptitude and shitty spending reduced your budget to all but 2 USD and the pre-21st Century IBM laptop used for rendering. Forget the ambition that landed you this job, forget making something even serviceable. You're lucky to even come up with 20 minutes of footage each week. Cut. Every. Cost. Inexperienced animators? Reduce their work down to lipflaps, they'll finish an entire episode before Lunch. Oh, and let's hold still shots of naked characters monologuing for a minute long, with a plain white gradient as the background. Wait, the manga has a queer kissing scene? Too complex, let's just throw in a lens flare and make the Internet think we're homophobic. Remember everyone, we're not really "half"-assing, it's closer to "three-fourths." This is still nearly the best you could do, even if Daddy CR felt more generous.

- Step 4: Profit (Or Lack Thereof, Because You've Made the Worst TV Anime of All-Time.)

Great work! Now it's time to sit back and revel in the bitter fruits of your labor. Even after taking into account that this is Kimura's first outing in animation, his final product makes you question if he's ever stepped foot in a film school to begin with. Ex-Arm is filled with the most questionable shot editing imaginable. At times Kimura would hold entire shots for almost a whole minute, in others he'd make short jump-cuts that add nothing to a scene. Sequences progress with no logical sense or continuity, with most action scenes feeling as if two or three storyboard panels got skipped over. The only traits Kimura seems to have retained from his resume are some of live-action's most notorious, such as unnecessary shaky cams and random Zach Snyder zooms whenever characters so much as turn their cheeks to the camera. Meanwhile, the only "Visual Flight" this studio managed to stitch together was torture that hurts as much as chucking your eyeballs down a flight of stairs. If a character does nothing but speak in-frame, Ex-Arm shamelessly resorts to slapping on a lipflap onto a 2D comic-strip character. This occurs even if other 3D models make unnerving movements while sharing the screen. Stilted, frozen facial expressions are the norm, as only the jaws are ever animated. Tomisaka tops it all off with some of the worst VFX work since the 2000s. Scenes that are remotely action-intensive have characters move across the screen with their after images intact, like the cover of an "Animorphs" novel. Frame rate drops are common, even for the most rudimentary of action sequences. The compositing boils down to "add a green-screen template and lower the opacity," with fire and dust particles ripped straight from YouTube. Any other assets end up looking like ass, with gross visual distortions and bullets that travel at walking speed. And keep in mind that there are still other amateurs on your payroll. The guy in charge of the score is a guitar teacher. Your series composer, Tommy Morton, also has no prior anime credits to his name. On Episode 2 you have a storyboard artist who probably took up this job part-time as a means of breaking into the industry, only to realize the abomination he contributed to and subsequently give up credit on the episode, choosing instead to list the software company where he did his day-job (this is speculation, I can't think of any other reason as to why a random business solutions company would show up in the credits.) The budget cuts hit other areas hard too; such as the crappy excuse of an OP or scuffed lines of dialogue. That's right, a professional recording job featuring decent VAs includes peaking audio, cDawgVA would mald.

Congratulations, you have made a mess.

What makes a failure? I think the answer lies in the fact that I came into this anime with the sole intent of finding out what a 1-rated show would feel like. Similarly, most people are only giving Ex-Arm attention in order to see if it's as bad as everyone says. I can't think of a single audience member who has unironically been better off with this show for the intended purpose, and that's what makes it a failure in my eyes. It takes a special degree of incompetence to screw up so egregiously. As a guy who's lenient on mediocre visuals and finds nice things to say about most cheaply-animated SoLs, this is the first time I've witnessed a show with production this bafflingly bad; it fully prevents me from enjoying anything noteworthy in terms of writing. And the script has decent worldbuilding, doing a well thought-out sci-fi spin on the cop procedural format. Admittedly, there are genuinely fun ideas even in the visual department, but they are fleeting and far in-between. However, these qualities will never get their time in the spotlight, because production across all aspects is so comically horrendous. Ex-Arm is the end result of systematic failure, with all parties involved woefully out of their depth. This was a team that neither could nor should have come within a 10-mile radius of the dingy basement studio this was animated in. I'd feel sorry for the mangaka, but my sympathy reserves go about as far as an hour of this ocular torture porn.

There is a parable in the book of Luke, which goes as follows: '“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’' (14:28-30) Ex-Arm may not be found in the Scriptures, but nonetheless is a failure of Biblical proportions. Jesus Himself couldn't save this "anime," and I use quotes since calling this hack adaptation one would be too generous a compliment. Instead, this incomplete husk that is Ex-Arm will live on as a subject of ridicule, and a reminder. A cautionary tale, warning of the dangers of failing to count your cost.

To the post-Sony-acquisition Crunchyroll: for the love of God, please leave anime to the people who can f^cking make them. 1/10~

***

Yup, that's a wrap. My quest for finding a 1 has come to an end, and it feels pretty surreal. It's not even like I'm upset, just really bemused at this unprecedented disaster. Gotta drop it early to preserve my sanity. If you happen to like my verbose rants, feel free to check out my other reviews on actually-watchable shows for seasons past and present. Till then, peace~

One of the best animes of 1994. The Artstyle is amazing it's like it was made by 4 interns in 1 night. You can really feel the hard work put into this thing with every frame meticulously animated to make it look like a masterpiece. If you like Attack On Titan, One Punch Man, The Promised Neverland, Overlord, Evangelion, and Naruto, you will love this movie. Ignore This: Unique story well rounded characters characrers reacted to the situation realistically characters were unusually strong/smart/stupid i liked the genere they had flaws i think people will like it/dislike it/why? Why-man dr. Stone/dr strange

Where do I even begin with? This anime is a trainwreck and we are currently 4 episodes deep. I don't have to wait for the show to finish to know this is bad, like really bad, and the problem isn't necessarily the plot. The soundtrack isn't bad either, the opening is actually quite enjoyable. But the animation, oh the unholy animation. So, to begin with, they thought CGI would be the way to go, fair enough, bold decision but some animes managed to do it well..... But yeah they didn't. The characters look like they are traumatized, completely expressionless, they barely blink and their pupils areeternally stuck in place. At the same time, they use 2D animation just so the horrible CGI can really pop out. The visuals constantly glitch and most of the models float in mid-air for no good reason. Sometimes the animations even reset.

It.Looks.Horrendous.

Now for the MMD looking fight scenes. The choreography isn't horrible, just terribly mediocre. The characters are incredibly stiff and apparently possess the power to manipulate gravity. I had to watch the fight scenes in slow motion just to fully analyze the sh*tshow displayed in front of me. Some scenes are so ridiculous (Like the heli scene in episode 2) I feel like I might be having a stroke.

Also... How did they get VA's like Ishikawa Yui and Uesaka Sumire (just to name a few) to voice act in this disaster... Like how?

Honestly, this anime is awful in an appalling way, with asinine levels of animation and production. This thing only has a 2 and not a 1 on MAL because of the meme value; but look me in the eyes and tell me you didn't enjoy it, I dare you. It's that type of anime that is so incredibly bad, it's stupidly enjoyable. Kinda like The Room of anime, you know? After watching it with 2 friends of mine at 4 in the morning, I found myself laughing like an idiot. Maybe it's just a huge troll and we're all being fooled; maybe it's just bad, but if that's the case then f*ck me is it enjoyably bad. 10/10 for making me choke of laughter.

Ex-Arm is a masterpiece on par with literary works such as Skibidi Toilet and Monster School. The plot and setting is richly developed, and features extensive critique on what it means to be human, that puts Frankenstein to shame. The animation is flawless, and has finally hushed all the anti-CGI anime critics, who believe the medium is doomed to failure. The soundtrack is masterfully crafted and the choreography of the fight scenes is beautiful. I could not imagine how any show - nay, any literature - could possibly outdo Ex-Arm. Yeah nah this show is hot ass 10/10 made me laugh harder than any recent comedy

Honestly when I first started this anime I expected a 1/10 type of anime but upon further analysis I couldn't help but realize how good it is I'd even say its better than FMA Brotherhood. It's characters have so much depth and only simpletons would think of this anime as bad as their simple minds simply can't comprehend on how deep it is. I almost cried watching the animation it was simply that magnificent it's obvious it surpasses the likes Of Mob Pyscho 100, Demon slayer and even fate, I would even go so far to say that it even surpasses Berserk manga art.

The Plot/Story: The story is about our main Protagonist Akira. Akira tried to get isekai'ed into a better anime but truck-Kun betrayed him and he was only comatose for 16 years. His brother, a genius S*x doll maker, makes his favourite doll from 16 years ago to save him, where it's revealed the main character is now just a DUMB BRAIN! Art: Watched the trailer, thought it was going to be a fun time! *spoilers* it was not a fun time... Their animation team did an incredible job at inflicting physical pain to my eyes. Especially the scenes where they drew minor characters with 2d so the audiencecan also get a contrast between the terrible 3d, and the decent 2d. The advantages of 3d allow for more character expression but half the time, the characters look like this 0_0. Their final desperate attempt to sell the art was to please the degenerates and make two girls kiss… When your art style can’t make two girls kissing HOT! There’s no saving it…

Sound:

For a sci-fi show, I was expecting some Techno, bass, electric guitar, even dubstep if you are going cheap. But they went BOLD and paid $20 for someone to create an adobe flash game soundtrack for them! (I was joking but TURNS out that’s what they did…)

Character:

Akira is your stand "shonen" protagonist and to explain how "STANDARD" he is I'm going to describe his character study.

He's a teenager who got himself into an undesirable situation where he finds himself powerless. But he then gains a special ability that allows him to overcome the situation. He must now refine that ability to protect him and his loved ones from future looming threats!

How series combat the "shonen" protagonist syndrome is surrounding the main character with more interesting side characters where they're able to bounce their personalities with the MC. 0_0 is not a personality trait, but this series tries to convince you it is!

Enjoyment:

This ruined my day...

Overall:

I'm not an alcoholic.... BUUUUUT watching this series has convinced me, to never watch it sober again.

HELLO HELLO! I don't want to make it all the fake~~~ "Declaring war against all of the SF series around the world!"? More like declaring victory at being the WORST show ever to grace anime since Berserk 2016 and Gibiate, fuck, even RWBY Season 1 looks better than this fucking abomination. Here we go again, the battle for the "Best of the Best and Worst" of the season, and Winter 2021 proves it all one and the same. What is Wonder Egg Priority? What is Re:Zero? What EVEN is Attack on Titan? Nope...the best show of the season goes to Ex-Arm, the one and only show youSHOULD watch at the behest of everyone who deems those shows masterpieces! And who are we to thank for this project? Well, a studio production team that does C-grade live-action productions that NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM ever had an inkling of knowledge of how to make anime, making this modern abomination like the trash that it is. Plus, I'd like to take this time to segue and thank our great sponsor: Crunchyroll! You guys have done a SUPERB job at shooting yourselves on the foot once again, damn son! You and your originals sure know how to make modern classic masterpieces in the making! Not only are the people in the West complaining, but even people in Japan are deeming it as "令和史上最強のアニメが爆誕しました" (or The strongest anime in the history of Reiwa (Japan) was born). Man, have we as the audience of the anime community not have our pair of eyes wrecked to oblivion, or have companies strapped cash ready to slap them on our faces?

Heck, I'll just raise awareness through these videos (full credits to them):

"How Not To Make An Anime (What Went Wrong With Crunchyroll's EX-ARM) | Animator Spotlight" by The Canipa Effect

"There is NO precedent for Ex-Arm. They had the money to bring in well-known VAs and en entire stunt team, but it didn't make the show any better. NONE OF THIS WAS A FREAK ACCIDENT. You can't blame COVID for the whole thing. And the blame lies squarely on the leadership." - Canipa

"How The WORST Anime Ever Made Was Made | Ex-Arm" by Browntable

"So these people got a shit-ton of $$$, and that's...what they put out? That's disappointing to me. So yeah, that's Ex-Arm, and uh...THAT'S PAIN."

"EX-Arm: The "Best" Anime Ever Made" by Trash Taste

"I'm a complete noob and I've seen clips of it, but can you explain to me what Ex-Arm is in its totalness?" - CDawgVA

"It is...HILARIOUS (laughter)." - The Anime Man

"It is...an EXPERIENCE, I would say. So that I think we have literally got the Mass Effect: Andromeda releases of anime, if you know what I mean?" - Gigguk

"The HOTTEST EX-Quisite TRASH Anime of Winter 2021" by Mother's Basement

"This is the kind of violent mess that you just can't lO.Ok away from, angles so tangled they verge on non-euclidian. It LINGERS in your eye even after you pull your meat ones away, taunting you to imagine how ANY human being, could fuck ANYTHING up in this many ways, THIS BADLY at the same time. Even Gibiate and GoHands shows aren't physically pain to watch any more." - Geoff Thew, professional shitbag

To be fair, let's break this classic modern masterpiece in the making shall we?

Story (from Wikipedia/MAL, re-arranged in style, because I don't care):

"2014: Akira Natsume seems to almost have a phobia of electrical devices while also being very good at diagnosing them. He resolves to change himself for the better and get a girlfriend like his older brother did. But then suddenly, static Truck-kun sends him towards his death!

2030: A special policewoman Minami and her Android partner Alma retrieve and activate a highly advanced AI and superweapon called EX-ARM and put it into full control of their ship as a last resort. Turns out the AI is actually just Akira's brain!

There! Easy to diagnose isn't it? I feel pretty bad for both author HiRock and illustrator Komi Shinya, both these people DO NOT deserve to have their work translate into this disastrous atrocity, but at least the plot made made sense into yet another illustration of an post-apocalyptic time-travelling Isekai to stop evil from suppression of the world...in Sony Vegas Pro effects of culminating dark lightning balls and screen shaking effects. The story isn't bad, to be honest, in fact it's a decent one.

Characters:

Who gives a shit when characters aren't drawn and motion-captured very well? From Akira to Minami and everyone else, you have great VAs backing you up, but the stiff 3D just isn't enough to salvage your character performance! Mouth flaps up and down with no expression, it just honestly makes it dull to watch them get shocked and happy without some expression. What a shame.

Visual (Flight) Animation:

BE TRUTHFUL, you know what you came here for after watching the trailer (which is the OP itself). Never in the history of the 2020s have we seen the "Best of the Best" masterpieces of the opposite spectrum, and from Visual Flight to director Yoshikatsu Kimura and his "The Expendables" team that doesn't even know how to make an anime, from the homophobic same-sex kiss from poor CGI to 2D and 3DCG characters meshing in the same panels, piss off. You guys may have done some parts of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but that doesn't mean that you have the right to say that y'all are given the greenlight to do something like this, what a waste of money that's spent badly.

Music: HELLO！HELLO！

Anime: HELP！HELP！

Honestly, this shit ROCKS HARD so much I'm banging my head with the music. Forget about Dizzy Sunfist's ED "Diamond Shine", I would like to coin the music on a diamond platter that says: When The OP Is Way Better Than The Anime Itself. Heck, checking out AIRFLIP's MV on YouTube, with each and every comment getting a heart surely means something, can it? CAN IT? So AIRFLIP, Rise Again and make your song well-known!

"They even got my favorite 2000's rockband. Blink-183" - Gigguk

If there is a takeaway from anyone AND everyone reading this hilariously dumb-fuck of a review, Canipa sums up well:

"If there's a lesson to be learnt from this, it's this: Executives and producers at these companies NEED to have a working understanding of how anime is made. And not just the process, but the conditions as well."

HELLO HELLO! We still fight together!

No matter how I'm feeling lonesomeness again~

HELLO HELLO! We stand together!

No matter how deep I am in sadness again~

My soul will not give up...because I'm still alive...TODAY!

HELLO HELLO...no more Crunchyroll Originals please. Sink into oblivion to those who funded this monstrosity. It's cancerous in the most hilarious way possible, and I've enjoyed my time here from start to finish.

the animation is quite interesting. the mix of low frame rate traditional drawings and cgi characters is understandably off putting, but like. it doesn't bother me much. the story is kinda all over the place. but, importantly it has a story, it has themes, it's trying to say something. now, i might be one of those broken people who prefers the likes of Neil Breen for /what they are saying/ better than literally anything disney/marvel/etc have made in the past 30 years. beautiful images empty espousing nothing. vapidity, my friends, we are beset on all sides by profound vapidity. unironically better than rwby.

I watched Ex-Arm out of curiousity searching for the worst rated MAL titles. Initially, I gave it a 1/10 after 1 episode and dropped the show as I couldn't even look at the monstrosity of the animation quality and declared that this show would be the benchmark for a 1/10 entry, with completely horrendous animation. A few months later, I was clearing off my list of dropped entries and decided to just complete the entry, since for me it is better to regret watching something, rather than to regret not being able to watch the show, since I'm watching it on youtube under a licensed distributor'schannel for free (specifically: Muse Asia), not knowing if the license would expire someday and it might not be renewed. My FOMO basically got the better of me and I watched the remaining 11 episodes across a week.

As an anime-only viewer, I found that the plot is fine, it is an interesting take on the sci-fi genre using the classic good vs evil tropes, it's a fairly average show in this regard, it falls in the "I'll watch this once, rate it a 7/10 and then move on" category. While Ex-Arm might have terrible animation quality, there are signs that the animators actually put in effort to animate this, and learning that it is the studio's first animation project, I felt like I would make an exception and actually not criticize on the animation too much, despite the fact that some of the characters' animation and expressions clearly doesn't match the tone of the voice actor's dialogue.

Does Ex-Arm really deserves a 1/10 score?

If compared to other shows, I honestly felt for me to personally give 1/10 to Ex-Arm is the equivalent of hating on something without seeing the full picture before forming an opinion, it might look absolutely horrendous, but I personally don't think a 1/10 is justified. As at the point of writing, Ex-Arm has been rated by 44.3k users, while a total of 15.8k viewers have indicated that they have completed the show. This suggests that many of the viewers who dropped the show gave it a 1/10, with a staggering 29.0k votes coming from 1/10 itself, due to the poor animation that is difficult to watch.

Note: Mathematically, if 44.3k users rated the show and assuming all 15.8k users who completed it rated a 1/10, this still suggests that 13.2k viewers who are watching or dropped the show gave it a 1/10 score, which I don't think it is realistically possible at all, hence, it is assumed that a majority of the 1s came from viewers who dropped the show.

Conclusion:

Unfortunately, because the show looks a mess despite having a completely decent plot, I'd give it a 5/10. It may look horrendous, but I can feel that it was made with passion, the voice actors did a good job to convey the tone of what the story wanted to tell, it is just lacking on the animation aspects and it is very hard to overlook this aspect.

A lot of people bash the CGI animation, but while it is somewhat bad I don't think it deserves as much flak as it's getting. There are obvious traces that the animators at least tried. There are cool and well animated movements or whole action scenes, there are well done facial expressions, and so on. But they just couldn't keep up for all 24 minutes of every episode. There are fair amount of stiff movements and faces too. Still, I think the animation deserves at worst a 4, with some moments even double that. It wasn't the kind of lazy CGI I've seen inother shows that deserves getting angry about. There are by far worse CGI examples - the most recent that comes to mind for example is "So I'm a spider, so what?".

Similarly, story wise it's not as bad as some people make it out to be. "Not great, not terrible" is a good way to put it. It falls in many annoying tropes, but depending on how accustomed and thus accepting of them you are it may get a score of 6 or 7. I think most of them are bearable, however, two annoyed me personally too much so I bring my score down to 4 on this front as well. First, the trope of hacking scenes as physical battles or programs as CGI creatures in cyberspace. Second, unexplained and unfinished aspects left as if on purpose, either for a potential continuation, read-the-manga lure, or maybe just because the author gave up.

I bump up my overall score to 5 to spite all the 1s it is getting just from people following a blind hate trend.

This is the prime example of what an anime should be. This anime single-handedly negates all other anime with only episode one. Crunchyroll really outdid themselves with this revolutionary, state of the art PS2 exclusive. Everytime the main character, amos, or aimer one of those, went on screen, I immediately start praising the name of this masterpiece. Truly something to behold. I particularly liked the scene where... Ah apologies I seem to have forgotten the scene. Anyway, this cartoon is really in a league of its own. I liked how they tried to incorporate this manga into real life by using realistic 3D modelling using photoshop. Studioslike MAPPA and Ufotable should be on their toes, there's a new GOAT in town. This sets a new standard for new webtoons alike and I cannot wait to see what other shows this novel will inspire. They weren't lying when they said they were declaring war on all Sci-Fi series around the world. This romantic harem show really showed those series whose the boss.

Now let me move on to the things that make this documentary as perfect as it is.

Thank you for reading my review on sex-arm.

They didn't make an error, they made every error 🔥 the show just went backwards bro. 🔥🔥They started from scratch and stayed there🔥🔥 criticizing is easy, hard it is to praise🔥It's like they say, 'practice makes perfect,' but they're still in the 'practice' phase 🔥🔥🔥It's like a masterclass in error-making 🔥🔥 They really shut every people who admired this show 🔥 Never, give up🔥🔥 Honestly, it’s impressive at this point. It’s like they’re actively trying to set new records for the most mistakes in the shortest time. 🔥🔥 I mean, not everyone has the guts to keep pushing through the absolute wreckage they’ve created. 🔥🔥🔥It's likethey're running a marathon, but they’ve been going in circles for hours. 🔥 The real plot twist is how they managed to make every single bad choice and still think, 'Yeah, we’re on the right track.' 🔥🔥 You’ve got to respect the commitment to staying lost.🔥🔥 It’s modern art form at this point, turning a horror idea to a horror anime that no one is deep enough to appreciate. 🔥 But hey, at least they’re consistent! If anything, they’re teaching us what not to do, and honestly, that’s a valuable life lesson too. 🔥🔥 So, hats off to the show—for breaking new ground in all the wrong ways."

I read the manga and to be honest it was a pretty good story, not the best but not the worst. It was above mediocre but not a masterpiece so, when i heard it was getting an anime adaption I was really excited. This was one of the most disappointing anime’s ever. The mix of 3D characters next to 2D characters just makes it so weird. The fight scenes are so static and stiff that it feels like your watching a fight scene in an old CG video game and even those were better. Mixing 3D and 2D animation can make amazing works such as Beastars, whichused 3D animation and then 2D to put emphasis on different parts of the story. But here, it just wasn’t good at all. I couldn’t even focus on reading the subtitles because i thought i was going insane seeing a 2D and 3D character. I have nothing against 3D and i’ve watched plenty of 3D anime such as Ajin, Knights of Sidonia, and Blame!, but other than that i’ve yet to see any really well done 3D anime and don’t get me wrong those aren’t the best either.

This anime would have been so much better if it had fallen into the hands of a different studio that either knew how to do 3D animation well or just made it in 2D. Overall the anime was just a shit show with bad animation, bad directing, and bad sound design. I only give it a 3/10 because of the story.

WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT HOW BAD THE ANIMATION IS! So I did a thing which every human on this planet would consider a fate worse than death: Watching "ExArm". In this review I'll mostly talk about the animation because let's be honest: That's the only reason this anime stood out in the first place. Also, one thing before getting into this review. You know when you try to do something for the first time, but you're kinda unsure about it because you know it'll most likely be bad, but then your mom or friend says something like "Well it surely won't be the worst inthe world"?. Well, ExArm is VisualFlight's first work and it's also the lowest rated anime series on MAL (excluding 4 others that are only 1 episode so I don't take them into consideration). Yup, think about that the next time you try something new (But as long as you have an IQ of above -5 you'll be fine I guess)

Story and Characters - 1/10

It's just bad, I don't know what else to say. It feels like the author decided to take Ajin and make it a SF so yeah that's what this abomination of a show feels like. The characters feel so generic (plus their design is terrible) and they don't show any visual emotions (There's a scene where a girl is getting choked and for some reason, she smiles?!! Like what???). And the eyes of the main character. OH GOD, THE EYES. It feels like they're staring straight into your soul. I'm pretty sure that I'll have trouble sleeping from now on. Thanks, Crunchyroll!

Music - 4/10

Since the main attraction was the animation, I didn't pay too much attention to the music. But I'll say this: It feels that they went on the Unity asset store and grabbed whatever SF music pack was cheaper. Also, I feel bad for the artists that made the op and ed because they're not as bad as the rest of the show. So yeah 4/10

Animation - 1/100

Ah, yes, the moment that you've all been waiting for. So, no surprise, the animation was just as bad as the trailer. It feels like they took some scenes out of Metal Gear Solid on the ps1 and took out 99% of the animation keyframes and rendered them at 1080p. Ok, I'm sorry I compared this to MGS, MGS didn't deserve it.

The animations are really wacky and I found myself either cringing at them or laughing out loud. This is worse than youtube 3d animations. Like c'mon. Especially when you realize that some people in a room looked at this and said: "Yep this is good". I can't think of anyone who would willingly watch this (except maybe for people that think The Big Bang Theory is funny).

So you know when CGI anime has some characters that appear for a few seconds so they draw them by hand? Well, this also being CGI they did the same thing and it looks SO WEIRD because you can clearly tell. Like, there's a scene where the main character is in the same shot as his brother (which is 2d btw) and it feels like you're watching Gumball but the Japanese knock-off of the Chinese knock-off of the original show. The 2 characters also had different shading. The point is, that scene made me really uncomfortable. Like REALLY uncomfortable.

I feel bad even for the animators because they had to review their scenes so therefore they had to watch it multiple times. I don't know anything about VisualFlight, but I don't think the animators are to blame though. The anime industry is known to underpay their workers so maybe the animators just put in an effort equal to their payment. Maybe.

Besides the animation, well not much to say. So I'll say it again:

animation bad CGI bad story bad stop it

also this is my first ever review so yeah, nice choice me

Overall -anime bad 1/9000

Contains pii: false:auto

I’ve seen over 600 anime and this is the first 1/10 I’m giving. This is pure garbage. It’s so bad it gave me cancer. A kindergartner with 1 day experience in Blender could make a better anime. The CG is actually on the level of PS2 graphics and it is haphazardly mixed with 2D animation in such a jarring way that it gives you a headache. With 4 episodes currently available and the poor quality being consistent throughout it is obvious that this wasn’t just an isolated issue with some scenes or a particular episode, like what happened with the most recent Seven Deadly Sins seasons, butrather a systemic problem with the entire production of the show.

Seriously, I don’t know how this got made, how it passed quality control (if there was any), how it got approved to stream after being delivered to Crunchyroll in this state. Everyone involved in this project should be embarrassed and not be anywhere near anime production in the future.

I have nothing more to say about this horrible show, don’t waste your precious time watching a single minute of this travesty.

If you're looking for an anime that makes you feel like you're playing a free-to-play smartphone game, then "Ex-Arm" might be the perfect choice for you! This anime takes you to a world where characters seem to have been intentionally drawn and animated poorly. Don't worry if you can't understand the plot, because even the characters don't seem to know it. Additionally, you can appreciate the lack of shadows and nuances that make objects and characters even more beautiful with that veil of perfection, angles, close-ups always and in any case with the same basic expression. In short, if you want an anime that makesyou say "wow, it looks like they drew and animated it in an hour", then "Ex-Arm" is the option for you!

But don't worry, because even though the animators seem to have used advanced technology only to create visual chaos, there is still something to appreciate in "Ex-Arm". For example, the fast-paced action will make you forget that the characters seem to have the same facial expressions in every scene, and the soundtrack will make you forget the lack of emotion from the characters. If you need a break from the visual confusion, you can always have fun laughing at the grotesque details of the backgrounds and animation, which are so evident that they seem to have been made specifically to become memes on the Internet. In short, if you're looking for a visual experience that leaves you feeling like you wasted your time, then "Ex-Arm" is the anime for you!

On a serious note, this anime is a clear example of how advanced technology is not enough to compensate for a confusing plot and flat characters (in the literal sense of the word). But if you want to see how an anime series can fall apart, then "Ex-Arm" is the anime to watch! In summary, if you want to see an anime that has the potential to become a classic of the "so bad it's good" genre, then "Ex-Arm" is the anime I recommend you watch. Otherwise, you could save your time and watch something else.

It really hurts the eyes to watch it!

The anime cannot be watched, so I give it a rating of 1, but if you want to have a laugh, watch a few clips.

What in the world, the amount of bad CGI was enough to mark this as a 1 but the story so far is so weird. also fusing cgi and hand drawn characters gives me whiplash, if you guys just stuck to one style and had more budget and skill this could be cool. If you guys made this anime to look like the poster, I'd be interested. but instead you made something I could make in blender and photoshop with no skill at all. the cgi models are stiff, the hand drawn characters are flat. the only cool hing is the actual model designs forthe characters and the poster. put those in an mmo game for mobile and make back the money you spent to make this, all 5 dollars of it.

(They deleted my revieew 0-0 So I am reposting originally posted about Jan 28 ish ??) Okay, where do I start? (My first anime review) [Although I have a weird hatred for it I am gonna watch the rest of the series so I have something to do and laugh at] So, background - I knew when I was getting in this that it was gonna be bad. But I did not think it was gonna be this bad. - Let's start with the art/Animation. 0/100 -It's so bad it's hilarious. What I recommend is if you want to torture yourself, let your friends join as well! MORE THEMERRIER!! It makes it more interesting and it’s a good bonding moment over something to laugh and hate at the same time.

-The shading looks like they did this in a 3d character that they tried to make 2D. My example would be an exceptionally low-quality MMD animation from 2007.

-The coloring looks okay but there are some parts where they change coloring of the character mid-way through.

-Sometime the people don’t even blink for a good solid 5 minutes of dialogue. Like it's not an android of some kind, Minami Uenozono just stares off. She looks like she fakes a smile every time I see her. It’s hilarious that I got screenshots of how she looks so damn lifeless or regretting ever being there like she has a mind of her own (when she well clearly doesn’t LMAO).

-Back to the Dialogue, the lip flaps: sometimes they continue after a sentence has been completed, there is no one talking and it's completely silent and their mouth is still moving.

-Their positions that they stand in awkward as hell.

-The only thing that I can give them props on is the droid thing they added some texture. But I could not tell if it was because it was mediocre quality or that they put effort into it. I really Wanna hope the positive one.

-My friend described the fight scenes as “it looks like the Overwatch cut scenes.”

-The camera angles are so awkward that it will make you cry from laughing!

-Their eyes are soooo weird looking? I shouldn't probably be criticizing but it's like a good hour and 20 mins I gave my life to.

-There is so much more to rant about but I don’t Wanna waste my time.

The Story:4/10 (for trying) I have no idea, from what I heard they are following the Manga but I am not sure since Ive never read it before.

Sound (3/10): Kinda the only good part?

Enjoyment?: 8/10 Well I enjoyed crying from laughing my ass off

Okay, the sound isn't terrible, it's just mediocre. But with it being attached to the rest of the show? It gets dragged down as well. Just, good god, the story is all over the place and makes no sense. And the animation is laughable. RWBY season one had better CG movements... OUTSIDE OF BATTLES, than this thing did during even its action sequences. This thing was just pathetic. The thing is, if you just see a still shot of the art, it isn't all that bad, not the best but acceptable. But trying to watch the character models move? Nope. The only way this thing would get apass is as a "so bad it's hilarious".

*Edit*

Okay, I'm giving this show a slightly lower score than before, as in rather than twos and threes I'm giving it all ones... Out of sheer spite for having an earlier review deleted. Seriously, I had to go back and watch one more episode of this thing in order to review? Blegh. It makes my eyes bleed. Yeah, after seeing another episode my mood is ruined for the day.