selector spread WIXOSS

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and in the case of WIXOSS that may very well be the case. As I mentioned in my review of the first half of the series, WIXOSS takes a lot of cues from a certain magical girl anime called Madoka Magica, from the dirty secrets behind their world's setup to the hopes and aspirations of their main characters. While transmuting someone else's story to fit a new context is certainly appropriate, WIXOSS still ended up leaning a bit too hard on the fence and ended up flat out copying certain ideas and motifs from Madokarather than repurposing them. So, now that they've used up all of the Madoka storyline that they could, how has WIXOSS been faring since then? Much like the first season, Selector Spread WIXOSS really shines during its darker moments, and they don't even wait til the end of the second episode to really start laying in on thick. From the psychotically nasty to the horrifyingly sensual, WIXOSS certainly hasn't lost its darker edge that subverted its cutesy-moe look and gave it the edge that it had back in the Spring season earlier this year. As for departing from its Madoka base, the story shapes up pretty well during its first two thirds as the tension builds around what actually caused WIXOSS to be created in the first place. Unfortunately, I found the ultimate revelation to be a little bit underwhelming, though this may be more due to it feeling a bit rushed and poorly explained. In the end, I suppose I was sort of able to believe what happened, but it still felt very fuzzy on a lot of the details. I will say that the final episode was very solid, though certainly nothing we haven't seen before. Strangely enough, the character development for this season actually seemed to flip-flop a bit. While Yuzuki and Hitoe were the big stars of last season, Spread now focuses on Iona, Akira, and a new fangirl character named Chiyori. While I wouldn't say that Chiyori's character was poorly developed, I will say that she was exceedingly annoying in many parts, though this may just be because she is a WIXOSS fangirl, and fangirls are annoying by nature. Iona and Akira, however, actually present a rather interesting contrast in development, with Iona apparently being influenced by Ruko's kindness and purity, while Akira is driven to madness over her obsession with Ulith, who now inhabits Iona's body. However, I do have to admit that our lead antagonist, Mayu, turned out to be fairly weak as far as antagonists go, and while the final revelation with her character was fairly solid, she felt very basic and unplanned when compared to other antagonists within similar genres. Much like last season, the animation was done by J.C. Staff, and their hyper-moe style blended with unique color palettes certainly brings this anime to live once again. I was a little bit disappointed that there wasn't as much of the horrifying imagery that we had in the first season though. I should also give props to the final episode for some particularly interesting and well-animated environment breakdowns. As of yet, there has still not been a dub announcement for this series, though if FUNimation were to announce it, I would imagine that it would be very well-acted and well-scripted. The music is still composed by Maiko Iuchi, and her eerie ambiance style is still very present during the tenser moments. However, I've started to dislike some of the more dubstep-influenced moments of the soundtrack, as they don't seem to fit well with the creepy nature of this series. The opening theme "world's end, girl's rondo" by Kanon Wakeshima gives us an upbeat and eclectic blend of string, piano, and drum set to play us in, while the ending theme "Undo: Ashita e no Kioku" by Cyua gives us a heart thumping outro with parallel octave harmonies in its chorus to send a bit of a chill down your spine. Overall, Selector Spread WIXOSS is just as solid as the first season of WIXOSS, but doesn't do much to move beyond that.

Plot: Selector Spread Wixoss follows 90% of Infected Wixoss plot. So the battles by the dreams of Ruuko, Hitoe,Yuzuki, Iona continues and that is awesome. But now, the plot have more focuses on the "cosmological world of wissox" trying to make you now the whys and the logical behind the cards battle and the girls on the cards. But don't think that the dramas of the girl will be set aside, no only the world wissox will be revealed but the world inside every girl too. The logical sequence of the theme of Infect Wixoss will not be broken, and that is very importante to appreciatethe anime, rarely, storm of information will rain (without lose the complexity) on you and that makes the anime easy to understand but doesn't destroy the mystery. I just can't give 10 for the plot, because the similarity with Madoka Magica is very outstanding. Characters: Ruuko: Like every main, she have to suffer (more hihih). Ruko does not changed a lot from the Infected season. But i can not deny that she still pass want she have to pass. The spirit of war inside her, she want to battle, she knows that battle is bad, she have to save her friends for the Wixoss "cicle", she want to live with Tama. Everything happens on her mind. The growth (as a character) is very expected, this accumulation will be directed to where? Savior, friend, warrior, everyone wants to know who is the real Ruko. Yuzuki: Frustration, this word summarizes Yuzuki. Deceived, another word. Energy, another word. Truly, my favorite character. She dream is just terrible (and against everything that I belive), but i consider a pure dream. Unlike Infected season, Yuzuki shows more coolness, more rationality, she follows want Kazuki told to her: "don't be so straight". And that is important, shows an evolution on how she deals with her situation. She still is the "fire" of the trinity, but she assumes the prudent part of the group (due to their painful experiences). She is just essential. Hitoe: I have to admit, for me, she was useful only to show the effect of three defeats, but i have to consider the she was importante to bring the difficulties of start a relation when you are a teen. And more than this, she grows as character (and this is importante for a teen serie), Hitoe now shows that evolved, she does not fall apart on tears like on Infected series and now she is truly part of the trinity (Ruko, Yuzuki, and now Hitoe). For me, she still be the "weakness" of the group, but she has her "job" on the moral lessons of the anime. Akira: The bitch, only this. She is terrible, an unstable and manipulable girl. Envy, work pressure, crazy love, obsession, everything placed on a teen with cards with power to destroy dreams. I don't know if Akira evolved (as a character), for me the change of jealous and angry bitch for a lacking and submissive girl isn't a evolution. But Akira is importante to show the pressure on childhood, she is importante for the context, but i still hate her. Iona: This girl is the power himself, why i say this ? Simple, she is OP. The cold character (that Yuzuki can't be) with the power that Ruuko always denies. She is the key of this season, and will be the trigger for shows who is the true Ruuko, the true Tama, the true Mayu, the true Ullith. I can't see much development on Iona, she will be the op key that will show more of the feeling (and powers) of the other characters. I see this potential on Iona. Art and Sound: Good traces, traits that pass the feelings of the characters and that makes the art of Spread very light and intelligent. With respect to the sound, the opening and ending are according with the theme. The sounds during the anime are very unique, sometimes I feel like a dubstep dj that made the ost. I love this atmosphere. The voices are very good (I love Chiyori and Eldora voices, they fit perfectly). Overall: If you don't have problems with Madoka Magica you will enjoy Wixoss, but don't expect one anime better than Madoka Magica. If you didn't saw Madoka, Wissox will be one good anime for you to undestand the world of teen girls and a little about magical card games.

In depth review #5 - Selector Spread WIXOSS When comparing this season to the first one, I felt that Selector Spread WIXOSS fixed all of the problems I had with the storytelling. It actually made a compelling story on its own without using themes or plot devices that were blatantly ripped off from Madoka Magica in the first session. The story also wasn't as predictable. Despite this however, the creators didn't do as good of a job at developing the main characters this time around. I’ll go in depth with my reasons down below. Story: 8 (Very Good) Selector Spread WIXOSS is the continuation of Selector InfectedWIXOSS. It starts off around a week after the events that transpired during the first season's ending and continues with the overarching conflict of the series. During this iteration, the main character Ruuko focuses more on trying to find a way to save her LRIG Tama, coping with her battle addiction, and dealing with her new companion Iona. Compared to the first season, I think the story was slightly better. The major problems the series had where fixed when they focused more on the premise of the game WIXOSS, and focusing more on Iona and Maya's predicament. There was a lot of good things going on at once in the second season that I enjoyed instead of only recycling Madoka Magica themes in the first one. As for backstory, many of the random unimportant characters in the first session are extremely relevant now and play a huge role in the story. One example being Ulith. Animation: 8 (Very Good) The animation during both seasons of this anime where relatively to same. The only exception would be the setting of Maya's world that I thought had a unique style to it. I made a review of the first season so I might just repeat what I said in that one which was that the animation was at its peak during the battle scenes. The atmosphere, the battleground, the LRIGs, and the magic used during battle sequences were amazing. The atmospheres in particular is what gave this anime so much life. During the battle scenes, the background, and the overall mood of the setting changed according to the characters personalities, and deck color. As for the general setting in the real world, it was unimpressive and lackluster. Sound: 8 (Very Good) The OST that was used in this session had a couple of standalone tracks but for the most part was exactly the same as the first. They used several catchy Tech based songs with orchestrated rhythms in it as well as DnB and Dubstep. The music that played during the transition and in the opening/ending themes were changed to correspond to this session. Compared to the first opening theme, I liked the opening of this session more than the first one. In regards to the casual scenes, this session faced the same problem it did in the first. There were barely any song playing in the background. There were a couple of typical sound queues throughout the show but that's about it. Characters: 7 (Good) The three main characters that we've followed in the first session are still here but they aren't the main focus of the plot anymore. The story swifts most of the time for character development towards Tama, Iona, and Akira. Even though these characters develop nicely, and are essential for the plot to progress, I feel as if the main characters Hitoe, and Yukuzi where left out. Their significance in this session wasn't nearly as impactful as it was in the first 12 episodes which was a letdown. The main character Ruuko however develops nicely throughout the entire series. There are also additional supporting characters that join the mix this time around. Ulith, Chiyori, and Mayu where all introduced in the first session but they all got little to no screen time. Now they are important components to the story, and almost quadruple in the amount they are on screen compared to before. Enjoyment: 8 (Very Good) If you ask me if this series is worth continuing then I would say it is. This session treated the Madoka Magica identity crisis syndrome it suffered from in the first session and improved on lot of subtle things throughout. I liked it slightly more than the first season just since we actually got to see how this card game actually works. It was kind of weird to me that a card game anime didn't even explain the rules of the game properly but after watching so many battles, I got the hang of it. I enjoyed this anime because it was unique a unique spin on the card game genre and was just different from what I usually watch. Score is Rounded: 7.8/10 (Good) - Worth the Watch

My wish was... what was my wish again? What are we doing here anyway? Selector Spread WIXOSS is the second season of the card game anime franchise WIXOSS, and a sequel to Selector Infected WIXOSS. It is a deconstruction of the card game genre, with focus shifted not on the game but on the psychological plot of the show instead, making it one of the more unique stories around in the anime these days. Does it deserve the praise for being deep and different? This review MAY include SPOILERS from the first season. Plot: Ruko Kominato, a Selector - girl who has the ability to own a living LRIGthat grant wishes - parts her way with Tama, her previous LRIG, after losing the final battle. Fulfilling the wish, her opponent, Iona, becomes Ruko's LRIG in Tama's place. While living her normal life, she is again dragged into the Selectors' world, and vows to get Tama back and fulfill her old wish - returning every LRIG to her former selves. The concept of WIXOSS was very well done in the first season and was the strongest point of the show. It was a clever and interesting idea of having girls battle each other in a card game to either fulfill your wish by winning, or destroy it by losing. The psychological effect it had on players reflected to the dark atmosphere, and the mystery behind this system kept the audience thrilled. However, Spread does not do that. Although Infected had its mistakes in storytelling and plot holes, it was pretty consistent. Spread keeps the same mistakes the first season had and made tons more. The end result, to summarize, was a chaotic pile of mess. The plot in this show had no direction. It was supposed to further explore the nature of the WIXOSS system, but it soon went off the rail with multiple sidetracks. Simply put, this anime tried to rely on worldbuilding, be like a fairy tale, and have deep and thought-provoking psychological moments about people's will to sacrifice or gamble for something they seek, but in the end nothing from these things work out. The game itself becomes even more confusing, and as in the first season, the rules are not explained at all. Granted, the show is not about the game but what's behind it, but you often find yourself scratching your head, not knowing what the hell is going on. This is the polar opposite of other card shows like Yu-Gi-Oh!! or Cardfight Vanguard where the sole reason of the anime is to promote sales for real life cards, and thus having focus of the show on the gameplay. While those anime are criticized for having a bullshit plot, this anime should be bashed for having bullshit gameplay in the same way. It would have been somewhat fine if rules were fully explained atleast once in the show, because the game itself, while not having much focus on, is a vital point of the show. The problem with the main plot is that it didn't know how does it want to solve this out. Everything seems messy. There are so much things going on that you don't have an idea which are important and which are not, and the story's flow just kept changing randomly. From Akira's internal struggles to Ulith's plan, to Tama's retrieval, to Mayu's "defeat", the show had no consistency and either forgot its side stories (the incest) or tried to square up everything in the end. There's much more plot device characters in this season, mainly because the anime tried way too much at once (imagine Tokyo Ghoul) and just wrote the characters' stories off as fast as they were introduced. Characters: The characters of Spread are also much weaker than their Infected counterparts. The main reason is because you get the same amount of episodes (12), and have twice as many characters and twice as many conflicts. While Infected centered on 4 characters, with only 2 of them having a personal goal that the audience could follow, the second season doubles the count and gives almost every character a conflict that needs to be solved. Starting with the biggest disappointment, it's Yuzuki. She was hands down the best character of Infected and one of the best of the entire year of anime (and I'm not even kidding), and basically made the show alone in the character department. Her incest story with her brother was beautifully told (one of the few instances where incest is done right), and she herself was a vital point of the progression of the story. In Spread, she is put in a useless position, being a LRIG. Since Hitoe seldom fights anyone in the show, we practically don't even see her do anything at all. It's not her fault, of course, but the show simply just coldly murdered its best character. Aoi Akira, the maniacal Aki-lucky model girl, is one of the main reasons why the show turned out to be so pretentious at points. As a character, she is fine and her loss of sanity is detailed well but boy, she does not fit the show at all. Even with all of this attention thrown at shaping her character, she does nothing to the plot. All she did was just mess up the atmosphere so much it was almost impossible to take this all seriously. Same thing with Chiyori, a girl we saw just once in Infected and who gets a considerably increased amount of screen time. She is the polar opposite of Akira in terms of character, coming out as a childish and funny middle-schooler. Chiyori was a rather interesting look from an another side of the spectrum, bringing in some light in a relatively dark atmosphere, but she also does nothing to the main plot and nothing would have changed if she wasn't there. Hitoe doesn't change at all from the first season, being a companion and best friend of Ruko. Her character is actually an improve from Infected as she is not a plot device anymore made solely for the purpose of showing the audience what happens when Selectors lose, but on the other side she is still pretty underwhelming and she does not have much influence on the plot. Iona and Ruko's relationship is the most explored one in the show, but there is one problem with it: nakama power makes everyone friendly and forget their differences fast. The contrast was supposed to be the main point of their relationship, Iona being the antagonist of the first season and Ruko being the nice girl, but that contrast is lost quickly. Iona's motives and her character change are contradicting each other and she comes off as a badly written character, with script writers clearly going for the easy way and just having a different character change for the sake of cooperation to move the plot forward. Finally, we have the two antagonists of the show, Ulith and Mayu. I can immediately say that the show shouldn't have had two villains. Ulith was the better one, because it was more believable and her story didn't come off pretentious like Mayu's. As I said, one of the main reasons why the plot of the show crumbled is because it wanted to chew way too much than it could swallow, and having two villains at the same time was too much. Although Ulith is the better one, Mayu's story is unskippable and if sacrifices were to be made, the show should have had scrapped the protagonists' struggles with Ulith. Instead we have Ulith story which is forgotten in the end and doesn't have much relevance overall, and Mayu's story (the main plot) which is plagued with plot holes and generally weak. Writing: Speaking of weak, we have the writing. Being the weakest point of the first season, you bet it's not a strong one in the second as well. That is true, however it's not as bad as the plot's nosedive. You still have girls crying and whining over the same god damn things, level 5's out of nowhere, stabbing people with a knife on the side of the chest (really, what the hell was that supposed to mean? And the victim is okay at the start of the next episode!). What's worse though is that the show added in such pretentious dialogue (or, rather, monologue) that it was a pain to listen through all of that. Suddenly, the anime turns into a fairy tale that is narrated by one of the characters in the most pretentious way imaginable, with dialogue such as someone "entering me", "I can feel her inside me" and so on. Trying to enjoy the show at this point is something excruciating. The saddest part is that every single element of the show had massive potential. It was only the lack of focus that led WIXOSS to ultimately fail at almost everything it tried to present. It feels like so much has happened, but nothing of value. The anime is labeled as "psychological", but it has nothing that you could consider "thought-provoking". It's not enough to put some girls being tortured in a dark setting and call it "a psychological anime", you have to have more power in it. However, there are no tasteless fanservice or forced comedy, so the anime has that for it as it doesn't have any distracting elements that don't serve the story telling. Animation & Sound: Animation makes up for some of the show's shortcomings though. Choreographically the battles look amazing, the effects look splendid and the art style fits both action and slow paces. My only problem with it was how noses were drawn, it felt like there's no nose but a hole in it's place instead. However, the sound department was weaker. There's one track that keeps on playing whenever there's a "sad" inner monologue going on, which gets boring pretty fast. The rest of the soundtrack is unmemorable. The battle music is way too dubstep-ish and doesn't fit. The voice acting is okay for the most part, but the fact that there's so much crying and squeaking in this show takes some points away. Chinatsu Akasaki did a wonderful job at voicing Aoi Akira though. The OP of the show - "World's End, Girls Rondo", while decent, is not as good as Infected's opening (atleast it didn't have ep 12 sound editions to it as the first season's opening did). The ED meanwhile is beautiful and is one of the highlights of the show, and one of the best of the season. Summary: Selector Spread WIXOSS needed more episodes. The concept was there, the conflicts were there, the characters were there. There was just too much stuff to solve in 12 episodes. For a psychological anime, it's not deep or thought provoking. For a magical girl show, it is way too chaotic with its' presentation. For a card game show, there's no rules given. The abundance of plot holes and plot conveniences make it really hard to follow the plot. It is sad that Spread was a disappontment compared to the first season, since I liked the show, and the fact that to an extent Infected succeeded with such a formula was one of the biggest surprises of the year. Unfortunately, Spread just didn't know how to get to the end. Do I recommend this anime? It is a unique show, and it is a deconstruction of a genre, thus having a much bigger value than most of your generic seasonal anime. However, it is not fun at all. If you like something out of the ordinary and uncommon, give this a go, otherwise, don't bother with this and go with Sailor Moon for your magical shoujo anime. Final Verdict - 4.3/10 (changed as of 01.13 - previously 4.7)