Forum - View topicREVIEW: mono Anime Series Review
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meiam
Posts: 3674 |
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As someone who love yuru camp S1/2, I was really disappointed by mono and dropped it around 2/3 of the way.
First it really suffer from the focus being almost entirely on tourist spot rather than just general outdoor like yuru camp. It felt like the author got kick back for featuring all the local tourist destination, and just gave the entire series the same feeling as doing a tourist bus tour. It also lead to bizarre episode, like one where they spent their time doing wine tasting, when most of the cast can't drink... The premise also has the "adult hang out with children" issues, which is always kinda weird and creepy. It can work when the premise warrant it, but here it's incredibly week, you really don't need to actually do the activity as depicted in the story you create (I don't think Oda did a lot of piracy or punching giant fish to make one piece). The photography angle is also essentially dropped after episode 2. It feel like story goes into overdrive to justify a simple slice of life setting (people visiting touristy spot), but bungle it hardcore, when it really wasn't needed. Like, you could have gotten the exact same thing by just having a couple of highschooler take a side job helping a tourist agency or something and it would have taken 5 minute to setup and would have been more interesting. The rest of it was fine, if unremarkable. The character were the usual stock one, no one really stood out like Nadeshiko (infectious energy) or Rin (nuance take on the loner character). They had one character trait and that was it. Its not terrible by any stretch, but it just belong with the millions of other forgettable SoL show out there, not much of sleeper hit, just a sleeper show. |
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FanGamer24
Posts: 303 |
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I think a big part of the reason I lost interest was because every episode seemed to be them taking part in some activity that was only loosely related to the original photography premise. Also the whole manga thing just seemed like a poor excuse for them doing these things in the first place.
It’s like if Yuru Camp spent most of its time preparing for a camping trip instead of actually camping. |
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dreamingsamurai
 Posts: 50 Location: Fairfax, VA |
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I had really enjoyed the first episode with its focus on both Yamanashi and photography, but my interested really waned as the season progressed.
Like the others have mentioned, the cast seemed interesting to a point, but as the show seemed more on just travel for the sake of travel and less about the photography, I ended up totally disengaging. I have two more episodes to go to finish, but can't muster the enthusiasm to jump that hump. (Doesn't help that I'm currently absorbed in Ruri Rocks at the moment). 
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RobbiRobb
 Posts: 88 |
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What started out as the show I was most looking forward to in the season ended up somewhere in the middle. Like others, I really wouldn't call mono bad. It wasn't. Absolutely not. But it also didn't really leave an impact, and even though this isn't necessarily negative, it somehow ended up being mostly forgettable.
For me, there were three major points that didn't really work out for me. The first is that it felt more like a major ad campaign. Not totally on the nose, I didn't get the feeling I was watching an anime about whatever they were doing. Rather, it felt like I was watching an ad for Yuru Camp and the region as a whole, disguised as a show. This isn't something entirely new to me; I've seen quite a few shows that are obviously trying to make a region or a specific hobby or whatever interesting. But at least they achieve that and end up being interesting, which mono sadly wasn't for most of the time. The second problem goes hand in hand with that, because it often felt overly absurd. The nudges at the supernatural elements, the overdoing of all the jokes, beating them until they're dead. Somehow, that didn't work for me in the series. A lot of the jokes would have worked a lot better if I didn't have to sit through an entire episode for a mild chuckle at the end when it finally landed. And then there's probably my biggest gripe with the show, albeit a more subjective one. I went into this expecting a show about photography as a hobby, exploring cool places to take amazing pictures, maybe even videos. There are a lot of cool things one can do with a camera, and that can easily be combined with advertising a region. But being baited into a generic comedy after looking forward to a comfy show about photography was a bit of a letdown. Overall, I was hoping for more. But again, it's not like the show was terrible. It was still a solid 7/10 for me. But that also means it's probably already an average rating if you go by online rating standards. And that's disappointing if it could have been so much more. For anyone who is looking for a comfy show about photography, I'd still recommend Tamayura over mono, as it tackles the hobby and everything that surrounds it a lot better. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5348 |
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I'm not complaining myself, but I can get where this might put people off because it started out with the photography premise, and then pretty quickly became the Haruno show where the girls are there and happen to bring their cameras. At least for me, I liked Haruno enough to where I didn't mind that shift, even if I was very aware that the basic premise didn't live much further than giving an excuse for these characters to meet.
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The_Daytona_500
 Posts: 180 |
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Was a solid 1/10 anime. A decent ep in the middle put it above Yuru Camp 2 but below Yuru Camp 3.
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MemoBookworm
 Posts: 49 |
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I also felt like mono was really unfocused. Like was it about photography? Movie making? Manga making? Ghost stories? It felt like the author was throwing a whole bunch of things out and hoping one of them worked instead of sticking with one thing and diving in deep.
Also the pacing felt shockingly fast for a show that's supposedly slice of life. I think a good microcosm of this was episode 3 where they visit manga locations but for some reason they have to visit a lot of them in 2 days. So rather than slowing down and relaxing in a few interesting locations the episode speed runs through a bunch and never lets us linger. The whole show felt a bit like that and it makes for a real tonal disconnect. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1760 |
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I enjoyed mono, I'm not usually into slice-of-life or "cute girls doing cute things" shows, though I did watch and enjoyed Do it Yourself, though I have to agree that the photography aspect was totally wasted and Satsuki wasn't a very interesting protagonist, An and Sakurako had more memorable moments, and I did really enjoy Haruno's antics.
There were some technical aspects that I thought were well done, like some of the animation sequences, like the skateboarding episode. Also, I watched the Neutral Spanish dub and it was much better than Laid-Back Camp's, which was infamous for its inconsistencies despite having a good cast, but sadly Rin's dub VA was the only one who came back for her cameo, the rest of Laid-Back Camp's cast was changed. |
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VirgilTB4
 SubscriberPosts: 48 |
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While I enjoyed mono I enjoyed it's closest SoL partner show last season Food for the Soul more. And there's one point I have to disagree with in the review. All of the characters in Laid Back Camp have very distinct personalities and did so from the first season. Even Sakura who is probably the most mysterious character still has distinct traits like her love and care for Nadeshiko, almost like a second mother.
I do agree that the characters in mono are more of a collective with only a few standouts and do feel it works for the most part. Still I'd be lying even I didn't admit that my very favorite parts and what I most looked forward to in mono were the easter eggs from Laid Back Camp. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 19136 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Though I was a big fan of YuruCamp, this one did not grab my interest enough in its first couple of episodes to make the weekly viewing cut in what proved to be a very crowded season. The appeal of the cast, which was so crucial to YC's success, just wasn't there.
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings
Posts: 1075 |
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Yeah, I never watched mono myself, but at some point it felt like no one was really watching it anymore. Which is odd, because some people were expecting it to be the next Yuru Camp but clearly that never took off?
also no mention of the dub at all? |
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Philmister978
Posts: 530 |
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I think people, reviewer included, forgot that a dub even existed for this. Can't say I blame them. As much as I liked mono (though more as a 5-6/10 series; this past spring season was a pretty weak one as a whole as far as I'm concerned), it was really mostly carried by its artwork/animation (except for the CGI), some of its plot concepts, and its characters to a lesser extent. The pacing was really off (also an issue with the manga itself, tbh) and it felt like the anime writers needed to keep the pace going when Laid back Camp showed that they didn't need to. And it mostly dropped the photography club bit in favor of scouting locations for Haruno's manga. |
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tywhoppity
 Posts: 305 |
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Like most people in the comments, the show became a lot less enjoyable when the emphasis shifted from the girls to the "quirky mangaka"("wink,wink, that's not like me at all, lolol"). We needed more eps like the rollerblade episode, where the girls were actually doing stuff related to the premise.
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GhostStalkerSA
 Posts: 471 Location: NYC |
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Isn’t Afro, the mangaka of Yuru Camp and mono, a dude though? And yeah, I had been meaning to watch this because I adored Yuru Camp, but just became too busy. Maybe when I have a free weekend, I do enjoy watching a lot of fluffy slice of life nowadays. |
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Gan_HOPE326
Posts: 118 |
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...if Oda did, would he tell you? Jokes aside, artists doing research for their work isn't that uncommon. And I find the argument that "adult hang out with children" is creepy pretty backwards. I'd say it's the other way around - adults being mentors or even just generally being able to communicate with minors (not even really "children", more like teenagers in this case) would be great, and it's just something we've learned to shut down because we automatically think of the possibility of any sexual overtones to their connection and thus would rather nip that chance in the bud. Jury's still out whether this is actually healthy society-wise compared to how it was in the past, because while it certainly DOES lessen that risk, it also throws a lot of babies away with the bath water. But also, here, in fiction, we can absolutely see that this relationship is... I don't want to say healthy given that the mangaka is clearly a pretty irresponsible adult who has a very loose understanding of road safety and seems far less mature than her charges... but certainly in no way skeevy or sexualised (something which sadly can't be said of all such relationships in anime). So it's fine. The problem with mono to me was that it just wasn't very cohesive. It was plenty of fun purely on an aesthetical level: great set pieces, occasional funny jokes, beautiful scenery. But it kept jumping back and forth, there was precious little actual photography (compare e.g. the currently airing Ruri Rocks, which while being an anime about cute girls doing cute things also manages to be tremendously educational on the topic of mineralogy and geology), and the random supernatural interjections were just really odd. It's like it was two or three different show ideas rolled into one. To me this jumped especially to the eye because in the same season we also had Food for the Soul, which while less impressive animation-wise had actually much more well-defined personalities, a much more square focus on its theme (food), really funny character-driven gags, and all without sacrificing its fair share of reckless driving. |
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