Japan Sinks 2020 is going to be very difficult to review, because of how wild it is. the main plot is basically like the title, Japan sinks, and a family of people and some other people try to survive through it. You think the plot is that simple? WELL think again ,because storywise, this show is majorly on some fuck shit.It is chaotic the places the story goes. i honestly don't want to spoil much for you, but our ragtag group of people go from one place to the other. It starts out pretty strong though with a super chaotic first episode that was more graphic than i thought, but then watching the rest of the anime is the equivalent of taking my head and twisting it inwards like im in a junji iTo manga or something.

First it starts off fine, then the anime turns into Midsommar and Life of Pi, and 8 Mile out of nowhere.What is even more wild is that sometimes, the characters literally go through conflicts that are just pointless and other times they end up in conflicts just to kill people off and that's it. It does this final destination thing where every-time a group photo is taken, people in the photo die, but you dont know who. What I do like is just how the anime does not hold your hand, some major characters do die in this,and pretty brutally i might add. But the down side is that the deaths are mostly for shock value, and you dont have the time to feel emotion because just how INSANE the story is. And when it is emotional, it feels kinda dumb, out of all the times a person died, i can count on one finger a death that i felt for, but then again it was because of some bull-crap that was not foreshadowed at all. Also this show does not have anything to take away from it, instead it has all of these weird smaller themes that are hinted, it feels like Japanese propaganda sometimes and other times there are just themes of passive aggressive racism that honestly made things more complex than it needed to be. For example, one of the conflicts is that the group need to get on the boat, but the people would only accept pureblooded Japanese people, but some of the main characters in the group are Filipino, so they decide to take one child because the children are mixed , but then the children get mad, so the guy kicks all of them off the boat, but honestly why wasn't the conflict more simple such as there was only room for the children, but didn't want to separate from the group so they stay together? The racism did not need to be there, its fine to have themes like that as long as you commit to it, but this show is literally went so many places, that it basically showed me the world like Aladdin. There is this scene were the characters are just rapping about how you should be proud to be Japanese. Maybe this theme of nationalism was apparent in the original novel from the 70's but i doubt in that novel they talk about Youtube, Amazon or Starbucks. This anime was one that made me question if i was actually sane or not. AND IT FELT LIKE IT WOULD NEVER END. It keeps going and going and then it literally ends with a montage of Japan and a long ass monologue. And i was floored on how beautifully messy this anime was.

The ending of the anime tries to trick you into thinking it had a theme about how people get you through tough times, which is not true in this show, because in the tough times, the main characters are usually saved by some deus ex machina or by other characters. Speaking of which, the characters are pretty shockingly written.
The main character Ayumu in this anime is one of the dumbest characters i have seen in a long time. Her good morality cause her to do some dumb shit, such as giving the last of all the group's water to some random people, contradicting herself on multiple occasions, and just doing dumb things without thinking at all.On one occasion she comes across a guy who can predict when earthquakes happens and he is right all of the time, and then after one pointless conflict, she thinks he wrong, and then the earthquake happens right after that and they basically wasted their time dealing with her and need to escape. You cannot make this shit up.As for the other characters, they basically either die before you get attached to them or are just bland, the kid is fine and all but as child characters go, the cuteness wears off when he starts to whine. Just like any believable story, the group comes across Japan's most popular Youtuber in the country, but just like any typical Youtuber he just turns out to be an asshole with a phone to look smart and no personality. There is also this gag comedian guy from England, who feels like if a child read the novel this was based off of, made an OC for comic relief,and then showed it to his father,and the father was like, "you know what, ill put him in the show why not". All he does in the anime is make childish jokes and i wanted him to die on multiple occasions. Two characters that i kinda liked a lot were the mother,Mari,and this other dude, who has glasses, these two actually for supporting character got a lot of development and in the long run their development really paid off. But the cast in this show is huge, and people are dying left and right. To prove how messy this show is, the father character,Kouichirou Mutou and even Mari are labeled as main characters when that is just not true because the story does not revolve around them, it revolves around their dumb ass child Ayumu. not to mention she probably got more screen time than the two of them COMBINED. I didn't even mention the morphine addict, the cult members, or that fortune telling child, its just wow.

I think the problem when having these Netflix anime ONA's are that sure they may look better than other anime on television, but the downside to that is just how quality assurance is almost nonexistent. I know it's an original net animation, but i dont think that should be an excuse of how incoherent and ironically hilarious the direction is. I will never forget the scene where the old guy is suffering from morphine withdrawal in a truck and then it just quick pans to the others like it was a punchline in a sit-com. Also the characters are off model most of the time, and the facial expressions are ironically funny. Then everything became clear when I realized that this shit was directed by Maasaki Yuassa,(NOTE after some research it turns out yuasa just supervised for this show and thats about it so i know for a fact where most of this style came from.)

As for the animation, like in devilman crbrbr, There are times where the immersion of the show is completely broken when things look awkward.Now the first episode looked the most professional looking and there are other times here and there where the animators flex their talent,but i felt like the rest of the time, the show felt like it was going to just break apart at any minute, and other times i still couldnt help but compare it to, yes "Ninja Slayer:the animation"

This is the first time i can say for an anime that the sound is genuinely bad, so bad that the dub was the best part about it, yes the "DUB". Not only is it bad, but it is unfitting as hell.Most of the music is like this royalty free ambient music that you would listen to while studying, but it happens for so long at times that it bleeds into the tone shifts of the show at makes it feel awkward. If there was a happy moment or even a sad moment, the music would stay the same. There is even a scene at a nightclub, yes there is a scene where the characters go to a nightclub and smoke weed and the main girl almost gets raped, but any way, this guy plays some music but the music does not sound like nightclub music at all, it sounds like music you would hear at like a school fitness festival or a children's hospital office. it was so laughable. The dub is basically the most okay dub ever, it wasn't the best, the script was trash, but the actors did a good job. "just like devilman crybaby"

I dont know why even bothered watching this dub while i work on something else, because most of the time, i couldn't look away from my tv, Credit where credit is due, there isn't a single time where i got bored in the anime, there was something always to gasp at, to laugh at, and make you question your meaning in life. Never will i see an anime that has old guys shooting gunman with an arrow in an electric wheelchair, people feeding curry with weed in it to small children, people who shower with their clothes on, and SO MUCH MORE. And these things that I mentioned do not contribute to the story at all.This anime was just so messily written, put together, and the dumbass characters really sealed the deal on making it so bad that it is almost good.