Make My Day

On a frozen frontier planet, criminals sentenced to hard labor and their guards have to fight off hardy creatures who feed on their power source. The first thing I noticed was that the art was pretty good. Then I noticed that a lot of it was in a rather stylized computer-generated style. It's not bad, but it gives faces and hair a plastic-like appearance reminiscent of older, cheaper video games. Sometimes it looks nice, but the plastic faces can be a little off-putting at times, especially when you compare them to screenshots of the newest games. The monsters are reminiscent of tardigrades, probably to explain why they're living on a frozen wasteland with poisonous air. They're initially presented as immortal, but the protagonists soon figure out some weaknesses. There's a little more that gets done with the creatures, but that's pretty much it. The science fiction elements a bit minimal and mostly provide some quick world building. Our protagonist, Jim, is a likeable sort though a bit of a generic everyman. He's an artist who has ignored his dreams and is too shy to tell his friend how he feels. There aren't really any surprises in his character arc, but you may be surprised at how much of a fearless and badass soldier he is. It turns out that all you really need to reach your potential is a lot of heart and maybe a training video or two. Jim's new best friend is a criminal who repeatedly shows courage and honor. When Jim finally learns his crime, it introduces the core theme: redemption. Most characters are a bit cliched, and some don't really have any defined personality beyond "Jim's love interest". However, their flaws and redemption arcs can give them a bit more depth than you might usually see. It's a mixed bag that may work as long as you're not looking for something grimdark. I had to fast forward through a couple scenes because they were just too long and boring, which is very rare for me. However, one of them was a scene where Jim's girlfriend, a surrogate mother, gave birth. It felt like it went on forever, though it might have just been my annoyance with having to listen to all that yelling. Overall, I thought the pacing was fine, but the series probably didn't need to be quite this long. If you don't mind your science fiction being a bit generic and lawful good, it's pretty watchable. It's better than some of the stuff I've seen on Netflix.

Make My Day is absolutely terrible start to finish. I see reviews saying they liked the first two episodes, but those suck as well, though I think I know what they're talking about. So let's get down what I dislike about this series. Firstly, the animation is in my opinion hideous. I get that this color scheme and these textures might appeal to some, but not to me. But even if you don't find it ugly, the movements just suck. Secondly, the main character is a generic MC underdog that we're supposed to root for as he magically gets super competent. This trope annoys me to no end. But what makes it ten times worse here to the point of causing me physical pain is that his voice actor sounds constantly out of breath, and he is talking, or panting all the time. Which brings me to the third point. The dialogue doesn't flow at all. They talk for what seems to be forever in the middle of every scene, slow and repetitive to the point of stating the same line three times. On that note, the pacing absolutely sucks. The first two episodes are very fast-paced and have a lot of large-scale plot points, which is probably why some reviewers consider it good, but to me it went too fast. They kill off the entire prison and hometown like it's no big deal. The subsequent episodes in the middle and end move so slow due to the slow, long dialogues and largely feature only the established ten or so characters. It's really boring. And to top it all off, there was barely any creativity here. The Swarm have the design of generic real-life bugs, the only twist is that they blow up. The company is barely developed and what little we get to know of them makes them seem like the bad guys in Avatar, except that they're not the main villains because the bugs want unobtanium... I mean sig. The planet has only very basic biomes/landscapes, no other fauna than the swarm, and the only flora shows up for one minute in the end.

Quick review, as I can t understand all the other bad reviews here. Maybe not the most original series but it s a nice well told adventure. The characters are also well written even though it has its cheesy moments. Also liked the fact that it s an optimistic show, with characters that grow, learn to forgive each other s shortcomings and try to improve their situation. Everybody grows into a well oiled team and helps each other out. That is extremely satisfying and I found myself liking them more and more and rooting for everyone to get out alive...including the robot sidekick. He s the best. Granted, the characters don t bring anything new to the table and they aren t something that you haven t seen before, but it works and their motivations make sense. Just one character is annoying and always a crybaby which I couldn t stand. But the writers decided to save him to and he kind of reemeds himself too by the end. So, stop being being such harsh critics and enjoy the feel good sensation that this show spreads. Again, not the most original or best written, but it is a well executed story with a big heart, in my opinion.

I don't get why they made this into an 8 episode series. There will be no season 2, there's A LOT of filler, even in the short 20-minute episodes, and whatever air of "mistery" there is at the beginning it's gone by the third episode. From then on it's basically a survival video game sprinkled with lots of useless, nonsensical dialogue. Half the characters are basically plot devices and mostly everthing they say is exposition. The pacing is really, really bad. Characters stoping to have long discussions about every little thing undermines all the sense of urgency and chaos of the events going on around them. After a while you just don't care anymore, as there are no consequences from any of this. The premise is interesting, but it gets smothered in such bad writing it's a shame.

What's the point of making an animated movie that has lower quality than every cutscene in even a low-budget game? I have no idea. The first two episodes can be watched, apart from the wooden animation, there is some mystery. Unfortunately, the next episodes are so boring and nonsense that only rewinding with a preview helps. The characters talk terrible nonsense, act like morons. The monster attacks and the main character reminisces about his childhood and contemplates his feelings. The monster is polite and waits. The message of the film is ... stupid no one gets punished for anything even for trying to kill a toddler. The monsters themselves are another nonsense, filled with explosive gas, for the first part of the series they do not explode at all even after being hit by a cannon or rocket, then they even explode on their own. If there are two, one explodes from the other, but if there are about a million of them in one cluster, then not. Fighting them is also boring, just millions of monsters fly towards the defenders and they shoot non-stop. There's an infinite number of monsters, so shooting doesn't do anything.

The worms take a huge part in the series. They are the key that makes this series interesting. Some may think the worms are just a form of evil in other series/moves of the same kind but consider everything else is so predictable. What makes this series less appealing is the personality of the leading actor. A weak, self-doubting, but a bit chivalry person saves the world. So classic. Parts of the series touch upon the selfish side of humanity but did it in a very shallow way. Once you have these ingredients for the series, everything just simply falls out. Noting really shocks you. That is, a mediocre script. Typically, in this type of setting, the lame actor grows through unfair treatments, self questioning and challenges. Eventually he learns confidence and how to fight back. He may still have his righteous sense of morality and I-can-save-everyone naive. But this series is a bit different: he just wants to stay conscious clean. Seems a great man but deep down still for himself.

Started to watch it as first two episodes have something to a good start. However after discovery of aliens the whole series goes nose down. Story is totally depleted on the start and furthermore they just prolong everything as much as it can be. Adding more and more irritating characters which are single minded or very inconsistent ( starting as crazy and in few minutes later are totally ok, then again crazy...). Inconsistency is even in firstly impossible to kill bugs, later they are exploding to later again no explosions (as it would be quite boring when in swarm one destroyed all desteoyed at once.) So let's say one and half episode ok, then total trash. Also nothinh new from initial discovery is shown, zero story progress or anything interesting developed till the end.

I saw it advertised on my landing page and clicked on it 'cos it was sci-fi but didn't have enough time to watch the first episode there and then. Come Friday evening and I fancied watching sci-fi and the clip I saw earlier in the week popped into my head. Straight from the off I was engrossed. The character animation, voicing, music and sfx were seamless and the cliff hanger endings of each episode enticed me to click the "next episode" button even though it was way past bedtime and getting further away with each intriguing cliff hanger episode. The pacing is perfect and never looses momentum the whole time. I was hooked from the start and binge watched the whole thing; all eight episodes in one sitting. I do hope the same team, writers, actors and actresses and everyone else involved in this make the next series, and more sci-fi products in the future. I do hope Walter gets pardoned for saving so many people, so many times and stays with Jim, Marnie and Kou. Its nice to have happy episodes with a happy ending. Lifes bad enough without seeing people on tv having a bad time of things too. Don't can this Netflix. I feel the Make My Day universe is a blank book of potentiality. 10/10.

With out spoiling anything... I like the human interest story, but when the main character figures out how to end the threat in episode I think 3 he does not bother to tell anyone. Of course if he did the show would be over because the threat would be over. Is he selfish or stupid or both. He does not seem stupid for other reasons so if you want to watch a human interest story about a emotional cripple go ahead; none of us real people are perfect. The sci-fi concepts are interesting too. The dub is good. The characters over all are likable. Its just that elephant sized fly in the ointment plot device to keep up the danger that breaks it for me.

It's hard to write a review that doesn't cover what's been written before. This anime, like most, suffers from typical anime issues. A young person is thrust into the spotlight to lead a group (or themselves) out of danger. They're initially shy and awkward, and then an episode later they're running around like they own the world, being impossibly awesome. It also has the same basic issue of static images with monologue look like stills, and it's hard to know whether the dubbing has been extended from the original or not, with a single frame paused to provide the additional time to bore us all with exposition. Add to that the 'surprise face' that the main character has and the 'oh, uh, ooh, waah' that we're constantly fed, makes me wonder whether this person is a newborn experiencing everything for the first time. As many other reviewers have pointed out, the art work is great, and initially drew me into the show, however the show is let down by almost everything else. Including the basic plotline that just doesn't make sense. Like, why is there a whole civilisation living on a barren frozen planet just to mine some special rock? If it's a penal colony, does there really need to be a whole city? How did the city get built if the air is toxic? Where do they get oxygen/nitrogen from to breathe? If it's a barren rock, why does the main building have a massive defence system? How come the tardigrades start to explode outside but not when shot hundreds of times in the mine? Why make this special mineral into little cubes that need to be fed in to machines like coins into a slot machine? The plot conveniences are numerous and just go to show that, sadly, people can not write TV shows anymore. If you're bored and really need something to watch, it's ok, but it's not going to win any awards for excitement nor originalism. Ah Netflix, you've done it again.