As always, I've read some of the previous reviews for this anime. I saw many hate reviews, which I can and cannot agree on. I started to watch "High-Rise Invasion" because some people on discord kept talking about it. They were actually pretty amazed about this anime. So I watched it too.
Let me start the very first nice comment to this anime:
1. Story
The anime "High-Rise Invasion" is about a girl -Yuri Honjou-, who finds herself one day on top a skyscraper which are connected between other skyscrapers through bridges. The horrible part is, that masked figures are running around, trying to kill the "normal" people like Yuri.
In this horrifying world, she tries to survive and find her brother who got in this world too. She gets herself out of danger at first and watches people die in front of her eyes but still manage to not loose her mind.
This horror, escape anime is very exciting to watch with many really realistic human choices. The anime shows how cruel humans can be to just survive.
The anime also shows how people easily use the situation to their favor. So it is only natural, that the anime has scenes with sexual content. It is really realistic on how people would change when they get to a situation to their favor.
Spoiler, click to viewclick to hide
Just some scenes with sexual content could have been reduced.
Spoiler, click to viewclick to hide
2. Characters
The main character Yuri had a really great change of personality which was nice to watch. I really love to see character development in general. All the main character were pretty cool and relateable.
My favorite character would be the "Sniper mask":
I love how the character worked with each other and tried to find a way out of this world.
3. Animation / Art / Soundtrack
As always, I can only say: amazing art and animation. It was really smooth and I didn't got any hard times to get used with the art style. I just don't like the animation of the blood... It seemed more like tomato soup than blood.
To the soundtrack, it wasn't really my favorite one. It was a bit too loud in my opinon. But it really suited the animes style. The thrilling sound and fast beats makes it suit the horror anime.
4. Anime adaption from the manga
For this point, I really have to talk about how sad it is, that the anime left or changed many good parts from the manga. As High-Rise Invasion wasn't finished when I watched it, I started to read the manga since I want to know how it ends. I really have to say, that the manga is way better than the anime. I'm a bit disappointed about that. When I only watched the anime, I wouldn't have known the fact and would have probably rated it better.
Spoiler, click to viewclick to hide
For example the maid mask never revealed her face in the manga and Ai's introdution is way more earlier in the anime. Some scenes got cut away on the anime too, for example Nomura, Nishimura, Nozaki and Nishimura's scene. For some reason, the anime switches the order of the scenes too. The "Great Angel" isn't as scary as in the anime either. The most bad part is, that Rika -brother of Yuri- got masked waaay too early! It sure does help to improve the excietement for season 2, but it also trashes the story from the manga.
The only good thing -which I think was- is, that the anime adds more flashbacks.
5. Conclusion
All in all, I did liked the anime until the point, I read the manga. The anime makes the story more rushed, half-hearted and less thrilling. Still, the anime was nice to watch, the animation great -just blood...what was that..- and story ok. That is why I will give this anime a 6/10. It was better than I thought, but it did trash the manga a bit. I really think people should read the manga first for that.
