Should I watch Cheating Craft?
note: im LA
Geez... and LA thought fighting over bento boxes was a stupid and wacky
premise for a shounen.
Cheating Craft is but a simple anime short shounen about essentially cheating your way through superpowered school equipment and the like in order to even stand a chance in the world. But our fledging cheater and genius of Cheating Craft Shokatsu Mumei voiced by Tomohiro Yamaguchi and Qiao Yi Huang voiced by Rie Kugimiya will beat the national test in order for Mumei's father to be freed from prison for a crime he did not commit..........so basic shounen plot right there.
We also get the typical rivals and allies such as Lun Yu Zhou voiced by Daisuke Namikawa the red string pen wielder and is a rival to Mumei though he doesn't show it at first, Jun voiced by Junya Ikeda the bug type user and main cast butt monkey of the main cast and has a crush on Qiao Yi Huang and our love interest for Mumei and perfect student of the class, Bai Jiu Liu voiced by Reina Ueda who always causes Mumei to lose focus of his goal to save his father. These characters are for the most part important to the plot to some extent and that's ok. Ohh and also Lun Yu Zhou and Mumei has this also yaoi vibe when they are near each other and Qiao Yi Huang seems to have a thing for that kind of stuff. LA's favourite character?...the only character LA didn't talk about..Li Xing voiced by Yoko Hikasa, a mysterious student that keeps an eye on Mumei and Qiao Yi Huang for some odd reason, unfortunately she hardly had any screentime to even get to her or know more about her.
Cheating Craft's plot has a tendency to follow shounen tropes only in a rushed state due to it being an anime short and all, you know the Teacher or environmental hazard of the episode, training tower mini-arc, superpower upgrade, rival battle and final boss...it's not terrible by any means especially for an anime short but still it's almost parody levels only taking itself straight. Cheating Craft also diverts alot of attention from Mumei and Qiao Yi Huang's goal with tangential episodes going nowhere (as in no test instead just fillery episodes especially in the latter half) and again Mumei being distracted by Bai Jiu Liu. The plot if anything is scattershot in it's pacing and the characters in question are most certainly not helping.
On speaking of environmental hazards, there is just one question LA wants answered with Cheating Craft, when the test are taken and the cheaters start battling with each other OR the teacher in question why does the environment immediately change? (LA isn't talking about when Wang, the main cast's homeroom teacher does the tests as they are on location, LA means the metaphorical battle arena both the cheaters and teachers fight in are NEVER explained) is it meant to symbolize the mood of the test or are they actually fighting in a metaphorical battle arena so they can cheat better?
The animation done by Blade is ok enough, from the consistent character designs look strikely distinct and even the aforementioned metaphorical battle arena's do set the mood for the tests given in question. The battles themselves on the other hand, well they have the calligraphy-eqsue name calling notion mostly for Mumei and some stock-used battle motions used time and again (backed up with the same Test OST used every time), the battles are ok, but LA wouldn't call it great because of it's shortcomings.
The voice acting is decent enough, LA enjoyed Rie Kugimiya going full tsundere (it's been a while) as well as seeing her snarky tongue-in-cheek side as well. Reina Ueda was doing her typical nice girl archetype moe vocals and was expected. LA would say the bets voice actor in Cheating Craft however goes to Kotono Mitsushi as Wang for reasoning on the finale and she HAMMED it up, even though she was kinda the genki ham all throughout the anime short anyways.
Cheating Craft is expected stock shounen with a crazy premise such as cheating in class taken to it's utmost extremes, it has it's plot problems from pacing, cliche tropes of the genre and not developing characters to not explaining things to the audience. Is Cheating Craft another botched attempt by the Chinese?, no it has spirit and at least a bit of a wacky shounen personality and at very least it's entertaining in a different way. Mediocrity is the best Cheating Craft gets and that's a compliment!
Thanks for sticking till the very end. Dont forget to comment down below, you opinions and make sure to subscribe to this blog.
Peace out
note: im LA
Geez... and LA thought fighting over bento boxes was a stupid and wacky
premise for a shounen.
Cheating Craft is but a simple anime short shounen about essentially cheating your way through superpowered school equipment and the like in order to even stand a chance in the world. But our fledging cheater and genius of Cheating Craft Shokatsu Mumei voiced by Tomohiro Yamaguchi and Qiao Yi Huang voiced by Rie Kugimiya will beat the national test in order for Mumei's father to be freed from prison for a crime he did not commit..........so basic shounen plot right there.
We also get the typical rivals and allies such as Lun Yu Zhou voiced by Daisuke Namikawa the red string pen wielder and is a rival to Mumei though he doesn't show it at first, Jun voiced by Junya Ikeda the bug type user and main cast butt monkey of the main cast and has a crush on Qiao Yi Huang and our love interest for Mumei and perfect student of the class, Bai Jiu Liu voiced by Reina Ueda who always causes Mumei to lose focus of his goal to save his father. These characters are for the most part important to the plot to some extent and that's ok. Ohh and also Lun Yu Zhou and Mumei has this also yaoi vibe when they are near each other and Qiao Yi Huang seems to have a thing for that kind of stuff. LA's favourite character?...the only character LA didn't talk about..Li Xing voiced by Yoko Hikasa, a mysterious student that keeps an eye on Mumei and Qiao Yi Huang for some odd reason, unfortunately she hardly had any screentime to even get to her or know more about her.
Cheating Craft's plot has a tendency to follow shounen tropes only in a rushed state due to it being an anime short and all, you know the Teacher or environmental hazard of the episode, training tower mini-arc, superpower upgrade, rival battle and final boss...it's not terrible by any means especially for an anime short but still it's almost parody levels only taking itself straight. Cheating Craft also diverts alot of attention from Mumei and Qiao Yi Huang's goal with tangential episodes going nowhere (as in no test instead just fillery episodes especially in the latter half) and again Mumei being distracted by Bai Jiu Liu. The plot if anything is scattershot in it's pacing and the characters in question are most certainly not helping.
On speaking of environmental hazards, there is just one question LA wants answered with Cheating Craft, when the test are taken and the cheaters start battling with each other OR the teacher in question why does the environment immediately change? (LA isn't talking about when Wang, the main cast's homeroom teacher does the tests as they are on location, LA means the metaphorical battle arena both the cheaters and teachers fight in are NEVER explained) is it meant to symbolize the mood of the test or are they actually fighting in a metaphorical battle arena so they can cheat better?
The animation done by Blade is ok enough, from the consistent character designs look strikely distinct and even the aforementioned metaphorical battle arena's do set the mood for the tests given in question. The battles themselves on the other hand, well they have the calligraphy-eqsue name calling notion mostly for Mumei and some stock-used battle motions used time and again (backed up with the same Test OST used every time), the battles are ok, but LA wouldn't call it great because of it's shortcomings.
The voice acting is decent enough, LA enjoyed Rie Kugimiya going full tsundere (it's been a while) as well as seeing her snarky tongue-in-cheek side as well. Reina Ueda was doing her typical nice girl archetype moe vocals and was expected. LA would say the bets voice actor in Cheating Craft however goes to Kotono Mitsushi as Wang for reasoning on the finale and she HAMMED it up, even though she was kinda the genki ham all throughout the anime short anyways.
Cheating Craft is expected stock shounen with a crazy premise such as cheating in class taken to it's utmost extremes, it has it's plot problems from pacing, cliche tropes of the genre and not developing characters to not explaining things to the audience. Is Cheating Craft another botched attempt by the Chinese?, no it has spirit and at least a bit of a wacky shounen personality and at very least it's entertaining in a different way. Mediocrity is the best Cheating Craft gets and that's a compliment!
Thanks for sticking till the very end. Dont forget to comment down below, you opinions and make sure to subscribe to this blog.
Peace out
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