So, after I reached my 150 review milestone last year, I decided to start experimenting with short-length, informal reviews, so I could not only expand my scope beyond more substantial media, but also just open myself up to the possibility of not every review I write being some huge project. These reviews haven’t done well, statistically, but I have really enjoyed writing them, especially with the degree of freedom they're given me.

For example, when I’m halfway through a series and I have some thoughts, I don’t have to find a way to justify writing them down. I don’t have to release them as a series of comments that are going to be visible for maybe a day before being buried. I can just write whatever I want, exceed the minimum character limit, and immortalize it on the front page of an as-of-yet unreviewed anime. And sure enough, when I was halfway through Kaginado, that’s exactly what I decided to do.

For those who don’t know, Kaginado is a creation from Key, a visual novel production company whose works have become so popular that almost all of them have been adapted into anime series. I’ve never gotten into them myself, so the only thing I really know about the original VNs is that they’re moe dating sims that are full of tragedy porn, and in some cases, actual porn. I don’t know how many of their titles are M-rated, but I have it on good authority that at least Air and Kanon had H-scenes in them. Do with that information what you will.

Anyway, Key adaptations are popular enough that fans have grouped them into a branded stable, and while this stable sometimes only includes Clannad, Air and Kanon for most casual fans(With Angel Beats being considered the Shemp of the group) there are other lesser known titles, like Little Busters, Rewrite, Planetarian, and a few more that are so obscure that even Kaginado ignored them.

Now, what sometimes happens when a brand name has several recognizable titles coexisting under the same umbrella, is there may be a crossover event. Disney had Kingdom Hearts and the Princess line... Nintendo has Smash Bros... Nickelodeon and Playstation ripped off Smash Bros... Cartoon Network had Fusionfall and its famous bumpers... Shonen Jump has Jump Force... But more importantly, Type-Moon had Carnival Phantasm, and Kadokawa had Isekai Quartet. I call these more important, because these titles are basically the blueprints for what Kaginado would become.

Kaginado, like the others, is a crossover gag anime. It features chibi versions of characters from around half a dozen different Key titles, and just like Phantasm and Quartet, the whole show is just them interacting with each other. Okay, so it’s a tried and true formula that gives you popular characters forming unique dynamics with people they never should have met, bouncing off of each other while making fun of themselves and their respective properties, so this should be awesome, right?

Well, I can only speak from my own experience, but no. Honestly, this show sucks pretty hard. To be clear, I really did enjoy Carnival Phantasm and Isekai Quartet, but even at only four minutes an episode, Kaginado was difficult to sit through. I’m not 100% sure why this show didn’t work for me despite both of the previous shows entertaining me perfectly fine, but I have a few theories on this.

First off, the previous shows were parodying much more relevant material. Carnival Phantasm came out in 2011, when the Fate series was arguably right at the peak of it’s popularity, and Lunar Legend Tsukihime... Okay, it was nearly a decade old, but Fate’s popularity WAS propping it up quite a bit. Personally, speaking as somebody who knew the Fate series well enough at the time, but didn’t know jack shit about Tsukihime, I can clearly remember learning enough about Tsukihime’s characters THROUGH their interactions with Fate characters that I was able to follow their material perfectly fine. Also the kitties at the bar were new to me, but I still liked them and their adorable nodding animations.

For Isekai Quartet, that show chose probably the four most popular isekai anime that they had access to, at the fuckig height of the isekai boom, and as a result, clips of the characters interacting with each other spread like wildfire. As for Kaginado there are two shows represented in it that came out in the last ten years. There’s ReWrite, which I have not heard good things about, and Planetarian, which seemed to be a decently big hit at some point. I had no idea either of these tiles were Key titles, and I’ll be honest, their connection to the more popular titles feels tenuous at best.

As for the three most popular titles that Kaginado used, I think it’s fair to say they haven’t aged well, and while all three of them do have relatively strong fanbases, they’ve each also received some substantial critical backlash, not only over some rather problematic themes(remember, two of them started out as porn) but over just how manipulative and misogynistic they are with their manufactured, somewhat repetitive tragedy porn. Even regarding the people who still cherish these titles to this day, we’re talking about shows people love for the feels. You love them for the dramatic and tragic elements in them, and you love them for making you ugly cry, so why the fuck would you want to see these serious tragic characters getting kicked in the balls and trading gag expressions?

Hell, I’ll be honest here... From what I’ve personally seen, in my opinion, the best thing KyoAni did with a Key property was the comedic side of Clannad. I’ve reviewed both seasons of Clannad, it’s fair to say I don’t like the series over-all, but when Clannad wanted to be funny, it was fucking funny. I loved every single one of Okazaki’s pranks, and I loved seeing Sunohara get his ass kicked in increasingly ridiculous and over-the-top ways. The comedy was well timed, it was well animated, and it was about a million times funnier than Kaginado.

The actual humor in Kaginado is the absolute lamest, most derivative, least clever, least imaginative chibi gag humor you can think of. Some characters say non-sequiturs, other characters quietly call them out. Characters will occasionally find something they have in common, but not one damn clever observation will be made ABOUT that fact. Out of the three famous Key anime series... I’ll admit, I haven’t actually seen Busters, Planetarian or Rewrite... The only one whose cast was designed to be funny was Clannad, and they were a lot funnier IN Clannad.

And I’m sorry, but there are TOO many fucking characters in this, and the writers have no idea how to use them. Remember in Quartet, how a character’s level of fame decided how much focus and screen time they would get, and yet somehow the cast was so well balanced that even characters as relatively bare-bones as Tanya’s soldiers still felt well-utilized? Yeah, speaking of someone who’s only seen half the anime in Kaginado, and barely remembers two of those, at least ninety percent of this anime was a blur for me. I grant you, it’s my fault for not watching all of these shows, but you know what? Air only had three important characters in it, but Kaginado still used the entire fucking cast, so maybe it’s not my fault.

And yet, the series ended on a reveal that gave me genuine joy. I’m not going to say what happens right at the end of season one, but it actually got me hyped for season two, and for show that was so boring that I would have dropped it early on if the episodes were any longer than four minutes apiece, that’s saying something.

I’m gonna go watch season 2 now, but I’ll leave you with my final rating first. I give Kaginado season 1 a 2/10.