Read (this) Or Die, the one with the paper

I was initially excited to stumble across the R.O.D. series simply because of the name, as I thought that it was going to be some kind of Saw with reading or knowledge acquisition to prevent your own death type deal, which would still have been awesome, but instead it involved very little reading after the first few minutes. Enough of my unsatisfied dreams though, we don't have time for my crushing life story and I don't trust you enough to tell it anyway. ON TO THE SHOW.

R.O.D. is a very mediocre experience overall, with some definitively enjoyable points and a fair amount of meh, erh, and whatevs bro it's aight. The story follows the above girl, known as The Paper because fuck names, as she uses her ability to psychically control ... paper?... to carry out commands from her government handlers. The plot is interesting enough, a few select members of polite society with powers battling a few select members of jerk society with powers always appeals to me to some degree, probably because I am the only person in my area with super powers, but I do like some explanation as to why they have powers and the nature of the conflict they are involved in. R.O.D., unfortunately, lacks sufficient development in either of these areas. This is not enough to condemn the series, but I would not put them high up on your watchlist.

The animation is pleasing enough, but occasional errors and a lack of detail at times make it less exciting than it could be, given the general badassery of being able to make shit out of paper and turn

it to a steel level of hardness. On the flipside, the scenes are interesting and well written enough that it is not too hard to look past the flaws, I actually forgot about the quality level until I went back to re-watch parts before writing this. This is ultimately because of the scenes like the one below, which look rad enough to stick in my mind and color my memories of THE PAPER.

My final concern is with the villains of the show. While reasonable in their design and monologue, the writers selected various minds from scientific, artistic, and academic history to be the opposing force to our paper wielding protagonist. I find this trend annoying and somewhat disturbing, because there is enough demonization of important shit in the real world, leave it alone anime.

bonus, this is what my notes look like when I watch an anime I intend to review (it was a while ago but I believe I was drunk)

*edit: file is corrupted apparently, my bad, you get nothing