Subject T-33 sighs.

"Seriously? Again with the padded room? At this point, I'm basically voluntarily going along with these stupid experiments. I don't think we need the padded room anymore. Also, all the other experiments took place in the middle of the day. Why are we doing this one at like three in the morning? Where even is the researcher guy? Normally, I'm at least dragged kicking and screaming into here. This time I just woke up and I was here already. What gives!"

The door opens, and the researcher of the Theoretical Generalizing Goblins group assigned to Subject T-33 enters the padded room, locking the door behind him. Subject T-33 is about to yell at him, but then he notices in one hand he is holding a bloodied knife, and in the other a Chromebook that looks as if he had used it as a blunt instrument to bash someone's head in.

Hello, Subject T-33. I've had a rough day today. So, I'd like to skip the formalities and just get started with the experiment. This is a rather unique one in the sense that I had originally planned to not even involve you at all. No, instead, I watched it myself.

"Why are you covered in blood."

Please do not interrupt. I've had a rough day. My fellow researchers would not listen to me. It led to me taking some drastic measures, and now I'm here. I stole a random anime from my fellow Goblins and watched it in its entirety, and I don't know what the fuck I witnessed during those five hours, but I now believe I have seen the face of God himself staring down upon his creation.

"Oh... right... the face of God... yeah, totally... there's a camera in this room right? Uh hey other Goblin guys, this guy's completely fucking snapped."

You don't believe me then? I will make you witness what I've witnessed.

"No, I'd rather no--"

YOU WILL WITNESS THE FACE OF GOD.

"I WOULD RATHER NOT."

#H-35: Introduction#

Hand Shakers is an original anime brought to us by the studio GoHands. Who I'm primarily familiar with as the creators of Seitokai Yakuindomo's anime and the Mardock Scramble movies. I do not know what suddenly possessed them or took hold over them one day causing them to create Hand Shakers. Mardock Scramble was of course not an original anime, but I liked almost all three of the movies well enough. At the very least, they were competent.

And it should be noted that the director of Hand Shakers, Shingo Suzuki, while he was certainly involved in the Mardock Scramble movies, he was not director (the director of Mardock Scramble instead went on to direct Girls Ride Bikes 3). Not... that the full blame for Hand Shakers should even fully be directly placed upon him anyways. I personally believe that it was a team effort, and the result being one of the best horrible series I've ever seen.

No other show can I simultaneously describe as be visually nauseous but somewhat entertaining. Like even when the camera movements aren't absolutely completely insane, there is usually just so much shit happening on the screen at the same time that it's ridiculous. Say whatever you wish about Hand Shakers. But this show is fucking unique. For better or for worse, I have never seen a show quite like this. And it works out kind of, because I can't genuinely say I was ever bored throughout the show.

It's unfortunate that the core story I guess is... more on the generic side. The main characters who are Hand Shakers have to fight a bunch of people to survive and also possibly eventually go on to meet and battle God to bring about whatever they wish of him.

...Okay, maybe it's not THAT generic, but... eh. I won't outright spoil it beyond the following tag but,

#H-35: The Hand Shakers#

Okay, so they're called Hand Shakers because their power is essentially triggered by two people holding hands while possessing a similar goal or etc. That's understandable enough. Why are their weapons called Nimrods? No, really. Why are they called Nimrods? Why is the "Hand Shaker realm" for the lack of a better word to describe what it is, called Ziggurat? I know the Hand Shakers speech that is done repeatedly throughout the show makes mention of Babel but...

Whatever! Fine! They're just purposely trying to be weird to make it more unique! Got it!

There are numerous different pairs of Hand Shakers throughout the show and... a lot of them are just straight up cliches, but there is at least one that is unique while also being a cliche.

We have the pair of main characters who are... well, they're the main characters! I really have nothing to say about Tazuna other than I guess I kind of wished they had done more with the aspect of his dead sister. ~~That was certainly a sentence I just typed.~~ Like that could have been a bigger thing than it was. But Tazuna's dead sister is more or less treated as a footnote? Like she gets brought up again at the end and I had forgotten that Tazuna had a sister at all by that point. Also, I don't know why they continually tried to push catchphrases on the Hand Shakers. Especially Tazuna. "It meshes! It'll mesh!" Please stop.

Koyori, I think I actually liked more when she was mute? I mean it was actually interesting. Tazuna keeps protecting this mute girl and holding her hand so she doesn't die and while it's clear that she still has emotions and etc, she can't vocally express herself. But there was obviously that anticipation for when she actually would finally speak, and then when it happens... it's just treated as... "oh, she can talk now" by basically every other character. And also her character entirely shifts into "I'll protect Tazuna" after that point. Eh.

Then we get to the Hand Shakers that Tazuna and Koyori fights throughout the show and oh boy.

First, you have the sadist and the masochist.
Then, you have the little girl boss and adult employee.
Then, you have the card game playing brother and sister (by blood) who romantically love each other.
Then, you have THE IDOL WHO FIGHTS VIA SINGING (but she also has a sword) AND THROWS QUOTES FROM HISTORICAL AND INFLUENTIAL FIGURES OUT WILLY NILLY AND HER MANAGER WHO HAS A DOUBLE BLADED LIGHT SABER STRAIGHT OUT OF STAR WARS THAT EVEN MAKES THE LIGHT SABER SWOOSH NOISES.

Then, finally, you have the glasses guy and spoiler.

...Can I just say it's straight up fucking bizarre that the idol character felt more like the final fight than the actual final fight did? Like they even do a whole flashback episode to set up the final fight, and Tazuna meets the final fight character way before earlier in the show. But Tazuna and Koyori are straight up in a way worse dire situation against the idol character who is just singing on top of a ferris wheel at one point with her manager.

The final fight guy straight up says in his dialogue, "I'm stronger and in a better league than the idol character!", but then they straight up just kick his ass. It's not even like glasses guy was doing that poorly against them, but there's just a point in the fight where with absolutely no reason why, Tazuna and Koyori straight up just fully overpower and essentially defeat him. Like oh okay. The idol character straight up hurt Tazuna so badly that he was fucking wounded and he left his house with Koyori in hand after screaming at his parents dramatically because he was gonna go take the fight to the idol character.

But the idol character just kicks his ass again until Koyori finally steps in. Also, the idol character bafflingly was the most unique of the five Hand Shaker pairs they fight against. I actually kind of loved it when we're shown that the whole time, she had like a little notebook that has all of the stupidly out of nowhere quotes she occasionally throws out written down in.

#H-35: You have to see it to believe it#

What I primarily drew my enjoyment from was of course the action scenes and generally just... how the scenes were done in general. Because as a person who enjoys watching weird or bad shows where it's really easy to question almost every creative decision they made, this show is fascinating.

"Okay, we're going to have a simple character moment where Koyori cries over an injured Tazuna because she feels helpless and unable to help Tazuna who keeps getting hurt for her sake."

"So what, she's just going to cry over him? This is boring. We have to spice it up! MAKE THE CAMERA GO THIS WAY, THEN THAT WAY, AND ALL AROUND HER AS THIS COMPLETELY MUTE CHARACTER CRIES."

youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZn9ueRnzPY)

Don't even fuck with me. That moment would have been way more fucking effective if the camera had just remained stable and in place. There's another similar moment when Tazuna is talking with the guy who inevitably turns out to be the "final fight guy", and while they're talking, the camera starts to move up. And it like it comes back down to show Tazuna/the final fight guy, but it's upside down.

Everything in my brain was screaming why. Why would you do that? That had to have been a conscious decision someone made. Why? I mean I guess it served its purpose, because since the camera did that bullshit, I honestly thought that the glasses character was in fact actually "God" and that's how he knew Tazuna. I was wrong, but it did turn out that he's of the final Hand Shakers they fight, so whatever.

I can't really describe most of the action scenes well enough to do them justice here. You really do genuinely have to see it to believe it. Like there's the whole weird visual effect the Ziggurat has on the world in general with fish moving across skyscrapers and all that nonsense, but then the actual action scenes is just explosions, dust clouds, Hand Shaker magic bullshit effects flying everywhere, and disgusting shaky and insane camera movements going everywhere.

It's amazing.

#H-35: Conclusion#

Hand Shakers is sort of amazing. I actually genuinely sort of love this show as far as a show I'm giving a score of 2 out of 10 goes. It's absolutely horrible, but I actually found myself enjoying bits and pieces of it, and even the scenes that were especially nausea inducing. Which I guess just goes to show you that you can in fact enjoy something you simultaneously think is fucking horrible. Because I hate to admit this, but I'd probably watch Hand Shakers again sometime down the line.

That's gross. But I just can't bring myself to hate this show in the same way I've hated several of the other shows I've reviewed. Yeah, that's about it. It's a pretty good horrible show that I'd totally recommend to watch. I personally recommend watching Hand Shakers.

"Alright, now can you please just fucking drop the knife now?"

You answered literally none of my questions. You enjoyed this??? What the fuck is wrong with you? How can you enjoy something that you yourself has stated made you want to vomit? There wasn't even a goddamned conclusion to the story! NOTHING WAS RESOLVED.

"Well I mean... sometimes you don't need a satisfying resolution. Whatever! It's fine!"

What do you mean "it's fine"??? You wrote a 9,000 word long review befo--

The locked door of the padded room is suddenly kicked in. Very quickly, a team of Security Goblins disarm the crazed researcher while he is distracted, and is dragged away. The original researcher who was the one who initially abducted Subject T-33 takes his place. The screams of the crazed and unhinged researcher can be heard as he is dragged down the hallway.

Well, this made for an interesting if unorthodox experiment. While it's unfortunate that he chose this method, I suppose we have a Subject T-34 now. Back to your confinement unit, T-33. We'll come for you when we have an actually official experiment for you to take part in. Until then...

"Great. More of these... I can't wait."