This show was quite the interesting experience. As much as I did actually enjoy it overall, I have quite a lot of negative feedback to give. So before I go into it, just wanted to say I don't hate this show, my rating is a reflection of both the positives and negatives of the show, it's just that the negatives outweighed the positives in the end. With that in mind, let's just jump right into it.
This anime clearly wants to be taken seriously and it doesn't do that job well. In the first episode, I could believe everything that was happening, had a very cinematic feel with it's widescreen aspect ratio, first scene is a police investigation which is already serious, main character seems to be stoic and stubborn, holding one facial expression through the whole thing while giving vague answers and eventually getting off the hook. This first scene set it up as a very serious show right off the bat, the camera, lighting and the widescreen helped build this serious tone and it seemed that would be the tone going fowards. Then we meet the principal character who is very cutesy/moe and blushes at every other word... I immediately found this very annoying as it broke the tone and it was clear to expect these type of female characters which the writers and animators make to be cute at all times and hardly building character on top of that. Then we reach the school as well as the explanation of him wanting a normal school life to be a break from the life he led before which was clearly established as some sort of military/mercenary type deal. This was of course hard to believe as he is a high school student but, for me at least, it wasn't too ridiculous to break my suspension of disbelief, especially since it's anime.
After this we get introduced to our main cast and my annoyance with the show continued. We meet Sachi, the maid girl first. In this introduction we get some amount of comedy as well as some "cuteness" in their dialogue with each other which is also reflected in the music. Not only that but we have a problem presented here that is a problem with most anime in general which is dialogue based exposition where she explains in detail why she is in a maid outfit when asked which goes on for a while for comedic effect but it personally didn't land for me and I immediately knew to expect more serious moments of dialogue based exposition from this point going fowards.
Then when introduced to two other characters, Amane the main girl and Makina the loli, we get introduced to the pervy cam, another point of annoyance. The camera intentionally is placed in such a way that we just constantly and consistently get panty shots within the show that don't serve any purpose, not even comedy, the only thing it manages to do is take me out of the scene/break my immersion, distract me from what's going on and just plain annoying me. As for the character introductions themselves, Amane's introduction is fine but I immediately formed a disliking towards Makina as not only was she a loli, but she was also literally a child, clearly the youngest of the group and they make her do uwu speak instead of talking normally which was extremely annoying.
After this, we meet Michiru the "tsundere" character, who seems to be practicing how to speak (which does make sense based on her arc later and I do like that the show does have subtle hints like these that come back later in a satisfying way which also happens when he meets Sachi and Amane as they are surprised to hear his name which you can see by their hesitation and pulling back upon hearing it) When he enters the room where she is in much to her surprise, we get a cool camera shot where it shifts to his perspective instead of showing them both in the same space with her panicking and going backwards with subtle camera movements which indicate the impact of when she hits the desks moving backwards in her panic. Cool shots like these are another good thing about this show as well as the style in general which is fairly good in terms of art though seeing it was the early 2010s, they drew some of the female characters faces with weird big eyes and weird facial spacing as well as have blushes be these squiggly lines all of which I don't like for the art direction especially considering that I think they drew Yuuji's face fairly well and the eyes usually look good, especially when they do extreme zoom in, close up shots. Anyway, coming back from being sidetracked, Michiru was also annoying here as she, just like a lot of the other female characters, was overly cutesy and blushed all the time. The show itself tries too hard to ensure us as an audience finds these female characters cute at all times and they hardly give them opportunities to be something other than cute and even when those opportunities are given, their characters aren't present enough or interesting enough for their scenes to be particularly interesting, good or engaging. Going back to the Michiru scene after getting sidetracked again, they clearly acknowledge the tsundere characteristics and have Yuuji make fun of it but that doesn't compensate for having it there in the first place. To point out an annoyance intentionally placed and then make fun of it isn't clever or unique, it just makes it more annoying in my eyes as they could've hinted to what's really going on with her character in her surprise of meeting Yuuji and "breaking character" while trying to figure out how to act around him.
With that, there's only one more character left to meet, Yumiko. Her introduction was the most interesting as I feel like unlike the other characters, they actually communicated her character through visual language. She sat alone in a room reading a book while intentionally ignoring Yuuji's presence, she clearly has a look of annoyance on her face and as he approached her, she proceeds to try to attack him with a box cutter which he immediately stops her due to his background. Here I can tell that she is quiet and reserved and wants to avoid people at all costs whether it be for her sake or for the sake of others which is somewhat intriguing.
Once Yuuji heads back into his room, I was shocked to see Amane just getting naked. One thing I appreciated about this scene is the fact that Amane didn't get very embarrassed or flustered and was unaffected by him seeing her completely topless. It made the scene feel more natural and not just an excuse for horny plus it adds characterization to Amane. I also liked their exchange in this scene as it was somewhat amusing and it was just refreshing especially considering a lot of the female anime character tropes present earlier. After this, the episode ends with a series of glimpses into sides of each girl we, as well as Yuuji, didn't see making us suspicious of them as well as interested in them and what's to come. This ending scene also serves as a parallel to the very beginning of the episode where we get snippets of dialogue relating to each girl's story, making the episode feel symmetrical which is satisfying.
Alright, enough about episode one, now I'll just talk about what stands out in individual arcs/episodes. The 2nd episode serves as a secondary introduction episode as it establishes relationships between Yuuji and the other characters as well as acts as a showcase of how they would interact with/work off of each other. Once again, annoyed by the loli, as she continues her uwu speech and weird southern accent/speech (which is supposed to be cute?) and she acts very embarrassed and shy around Yuuji as she also did in the first episode. Here it's established they kinda have a teacher-student relationship or more accurately, he chooses to teach her new things because she's "cute", young and ignorant and she looks up to him as a result.
After this, my interest in Yumiko's character goes away as she only seems to have one character trait of not trusting people and being distant and as a result she continuously tries to murder Yuuji. These scenes where she tries to do this I found a bit ridiculous as I felt Yuuji should take these attempts on his life more seriously and that Yumiko should have been punished in some manner for it. As they end off their confrontation with Yuuji seemingly making Yumiko realize that he just wants to be friendly towards her and that she should warm up to people more, which happens far too quickly and she's convinced by this one scene, doesn't really happen overtime making her resolve to attack him seem stupid based on how quickly it's resolved. Also, as an aside, Yumiko just feels like they took Senjougahara from the first episode of Bakemonogatari and stripped her of the more fun characteristics and give a far less valid reason for her to attack the mc; even the character design and the fact that she specifically uses a box cutter seems directly ripped off from Senjougahara.
Then there's episode three which just meanders and has no real focus, just introducing a lot of things that are relevant later at once as well as just having short little "fun" scenes/narratives spliced in. This episode was quite boring to me, I was not interested in most things that were going on and frankly don't remember much of it. This episode showed me that they cannot rely on the strength of the characters or dialogue because neither element is good enough to not be paired with the main story/stories. It felt as if they were writing what would be traditionally fun scenes without thought as to their implications on characters and character relationships so not only did it not feel fun to watch because it wasn't strong and it was a poor attempt to get us more attached to the characters, but it was also not furthering any character or plot so it just felt like a waste of time.
Now we get the first character arc which sets up the format going forward. First up is Michiru's arc and oh boy... I sure have some issues with it!
It starts off pretty good with Yuuji's and Michiru's interaction by the cliff side by the sea where she talks about how she feels boxed in and made an offhand comment about how her life feels small an meaningless earlier as well as the implication that it seemed like she was considering suicide by jumping off the cliff, all good stuff and the sudden line "What happens when we die?" right before the op shows death on her mind and the scene in general serves as a contrast for what we saw her character to be up to this point and serves to intrigue the audience as to what's going on with her. Then there's implications of her other self brought up by the characters, a scene where they see her hair wrapped after she applies more dye and leaves it to dry. Purposefully sidetracking here as I want to bring up something which I'm surprised I didn't get sidetracked about earlier, the chibi scenes. These scenes are just annoying and serve to make the situation/characters cute and break away from the scene and usually interrupt a serious scene or moment or it's just simply unnecessary. Going back to the arc, there's yet another pretty good scene between Yuuji and Michiru where she acts very differently all of a sudden, seeming more calm and collected and talking as if they came back from the dead which continues to propel my interest in what's going on.
After this we get a bunch of scenes I don't really care for and then the cat that she was taking care of that was randomly introduced in episode three runs off. It appears they give up hope on trying to find it and then suddenly, Yuuji discovers it by the side of the road, extremely injured, hit by a vehicle. Here is where we run into the first thing I really didn't like about her arc. The catalyst for the main part of her arc is the cat dying. I found it very hard to believe that she only knew this cat for a couple of days and managed to care about it so much that she felt empty inside and got tired of living only to lose just because the cat died, sure you can say it was the straw that broke the camel's back but from our perspective as an audience, it is very sudden and as such not believable. Then we get something significantly more stupid and flawed about this arc which is the explanation of the two personalities. At first I thought it would just be normal multiple personality disorder or disassociative personality disorder but instead fantasy elements are suddenly introduced into an anime with no fantastical or sci-fi elements, a fairly grounded story before now in terms of having things happen that can potentially happen in reality. The two personalities are as a result of a heart transplant where Michiru's best friends's heart was implanted in her own... wtf is this shit? This does not fit the logic of the show presented to us thus far, this took me out completely, when I heard this I had to pause and sit in my anger. The show's logic seemed to follow real world logic (in terms of what's possible not necessarily what would normally happen) up until this point and this is the only point so far in which something fantastical happens.
In addition to that, her conviction to want to die is put into question by Yuuji and he challenges it by burying her alive and giving her muscle relaxants so she can't move for a while (which is fucking absurd btw). Now, the flashback scene as well as the confrontation within herself was done well, I didn't really take issue with that at all nor did I take issue with her coming back up, what I did take issue with is that it took three FUCKING days for her to come back up. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but won't being buried underground for that long without any air openings cause someone to suffocate? Even if that doesn't happen, she would be starving and extremely thirsty after the fact and would probably be too weak to break free of the coffin and the dirt on her own. When she came out the coffin she didn't look or act the slightest bit weakened, tired or crazed for having been in a coffin for, I need to repeat this, three FUCKING days. That really pissed me off as well not to mention the fact that the hospital in America decided to use the best friend's heart coincidentally since her dead body was just lying by the building, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't just happen, there needs to be a process for that and I'm sure they won't just grab a fucking dead person's heart that's just lying there. Not only that but when she was about to say I love you when Yuuji was carrying her on his back after the whole ordeal was over but then retracted the statement and retreated to her tsundere character, that made me upset as well but not necessarily at the fault of the scene but more so the implication that they would lean into the harem element, have all the girls love him when he solves their problems and then has to choose someone. Thankfully though, they didn't really have the whole love pentagon where he had to choose someone but everyone did fall in love with him which I find a bit annoying anyway as it seems that anime always has that and that love never feels earned or valid in my eyes. The message of persevering despite the lives lost along the way and the taxing nature your own life could have on other people is neat but not well done.
Don't really have much to say about this one, I thought it was just ok, nothing I particularly liked or hated and nothing I feel like I can really comment on. It was competent, short (which I appreciated because I thought it would drag on) and I kinda liked Yumiko's struggle here as well as her characterisation, she didn't seem very one dimensional anymore but she still doesn't have much character, she's just significantly more mellow and friendly now and serves as an informant of sorts. Message about eventually finding people you can warm up to despite your circumstances and being independent from those around you including your family despite any "obligations" thrusted upon you as a result is a good message and it's done pretty ok. That's about it. Unironically ends up being the best arc because it has a point and results in a change in a way that isn't particularly stupid or ridiculous.
First thing I want to say is that I burst out at the scene when her parents got hit by the truck. It's just so sudden and the scene immediately cuts after it happens, it felt comedically timed which was obviously unintentional but I couldn't help but laugh for an extended period of time after pausing. That aside, I don't have the capacity to believe this character. I cannot fathom the decisions she makes and I feel like the reasoning given was not adequate at all given how ridiculous her actions are. The message of you don't have to be selfless all the time and you should allow yourself to be selfish is a good one but goddamn, it seems really dumb here due to the character and the character's motivation and backstory.
Sigh, I really wasn't feeling this arc, it is the weakest one to me. Not only did I care about this character the least, but I was also annoyed by her the most. The declaration at the beginning to make Yuuji her "papa" immediately made me cringe and I was dreading how this arc was going to play out. So we get moments throughout the first episode where Yuuji acts out as her dad engaging in activities that suit him like self defence and sniping which is clearly supposed to be cute and fun but it really wasn't for me, I was just annoyed every second we had to spend time with this character. When the hit was put on her, sure things got interesting, but I didn't find the backstory particularly interesting and we as an audience never see evidence of her amazing memory, instances of it being used happen off screen and it doesn't come back into play after this (not in this season at least). She also didn't really have any character change so this arc just seemed like a waste of time, resolving a problem that was not present before the start of the arc. This one just felt extremely pointless.
I would've said this was the best arc of the bunch but then the last episode happened. Seeing the events that resulted in the supposed death/disappearance of Yuuji's sister was neat and morbid which I personally enjoy. I dislike the opening of the first episode of this arc heavily with the kiss debacle and the dialogue that happened as a result, especially the dialogue between Yuuji and Sachi which was just a really bad attempt at comedy, it was just stupid and, to me, nonsensical. Amane's been horny for Yuuji for a while now, (since that scene where she pretty much just sniffed his stuff and masturbated in his room in episode three which was a scene that I kinda liked at first but got annoyed at since I thought it went on too long just for the sake of pervy cam) and now she finally is his girlfriend sort of which I think is fine, especially since they didn't do the love pentagon. The story of survival of the students over the extended period of time dragged on a bit too long for me. I understand that they were really trying to highlight the trauma that she would have experienced as well as the guilt that came from it as well as what happened to Yuuji's sister but they definitely made it drag on for the sake of torture porn which was unnecessary. Then they introduce another conflict for no reason. A parent of one one of the kids who died decides to take out his anger on Amane for being a survivor coincidentally around the time that she decides to reveal and deal with the problem with Yuuji. This conflict does not help Amane get over the trauma or guilt, it does not progress her character at all, it just felt like they wanted to outside world to conflict with the school so that every character could be involved in this arc. The last episode ended up feeling pointless as a result, wasn't even a conflict that was built up from earlier so it was not satisfying at all, didn't progress the story and didn't change any character, it was just there to fill time. Then they felt the need to introduce two random "bad guys" to tease us for next season as well as another series of dialogue snippets that tease what's to come in the next season. A poor end to me.
As much as I have seemed to bash on the show heavily, there were still things I enjoyed that I have sort of neglected to say before now. I do enjoy Yuuji's character. He's stoic but caring, he seems to be a bit arrogant and look down on others and he can be teasing, and make fun of others. I find that to be pretty fun and his dialogue is pretty neat as well. He also obviously, serves as a contrast to the very exaggerative nature of our other characters which I find relieving since I don't like the exaggerated characters. I don't mind the badassery too much as I find it to be there to serve in his stoic nature as well as his arrogance which are characteristics of his that I like even though moments such as the snipe in the last episode are quite ridiculous which detract a bit from my enjoyment but not too much. His backstory is also somewhat interesting and definitely built some intrigue. He's the main reason I will continue the show as well as the main reason I've kept watching and the style is also pretty neat, very Studio Shaft like. Overall, this show definitely has it's enjoyable moments, I'm not going to deny that, but from a holistic standpoint in terms of character, story, dialogue and themes, it's pretty flawed.
Hope you can enjoy the show more than I did, form your own opinion and maybe even justify some of the things I dislike.
Thanks for reading!
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