(This review has been reposted from my review of Akame Ga Kill! posted on MyAnimeList)
Akame Ga Kill! is a story about a young man named Tatsumi who travels to the capital of his nation in order to try and earn money for his starving village. However, after his arrival, it seems the capital is more twisted and full of despair than Tatsumi ever could have imagined. He ends up joining a team of assassins called Night Raid, a group whose purpose is to rid the capital of its corruption and turn a new leaf in the despairing nation.
I really enjoyed watching Akame Ga Kill. It was a fun ride with fun characters, fun battles, and a setting that's well imagined and shown. It has many strengths, but I do believe that it falls short in some of what it has and what it could have done.

To start, I would like to talk about the setting, premise, and overall direction of the show. Akame Ga Kill makes it very clear what you're gonna be dealing with from the get-go and follows through with it to the end. Aside from a large amount of gore and violence, one thing the show does a good job of communicating is the setting we're in. The anime does an excellent job of painting how corrupt the capital is under its minister's reign. It shows how things are connected, how the public is being manipulated and abused, and how an uprising has been so hard to do. As Night Raid dispatches foe after foe, we get to see each one's unique weapons and powers as as well as the corrupt and sick things they've been doing to find themselves on Night Raid's hit list. These battles are also nice demonstrations of the heroes' abilities, as well as emotional moments for the characters. The show makes it very clear it isn't afraid to kill off a character we've grown close to, and it communicates very clearly that no assassin is safe from the job of killing they've burdened themself with. The fight scenes, though the animation can feel lackluster and a bit lazy at some points, is overall satisyfing, as what carries it through is each character's abilities and strengths clashing against each other.

This leads me to the next thing I would like to talk about: the characters. Each character has a memorable design and personality, and their distinct features, differences from each other, and abilities help make each member of Night Raid memorable. The chemistry between the characters, for the most part, is well established throughout the show, and we get to see how well these assassins are connected, which helps make their deaths all the more emotional for both their fellow friends as well as the viewer. However, I do have some problems with our heroes. For one, lots of them don't exactly have the most original personality or character archetype. Lots of them follow specific anime tropes that have been long overused, such as the tsundere character, the onee-san character, the pervert, the kuudere, the overly heroic protagonist man, and so on. They do make good use of these for the most part, and each character will definitely stick with me for a while, but I would be lying if I didn't say a large portion of their memorability comes from their character designs, which are not exactly outstanding, but do a nice job representing the character and making each one distinctly stand out in the crowd. Another problem I have is with some of the dialogue. Here's a fun drinking game: take a shot every time Mine explains how her gun works. Chances are, you'll be wasted by episode 10. The audience is treated like idiots through a good portion of the anime, and this is made very clear from the character's dialogue and exposition. Rather than let the audience figure out the situation for themselves, the characters feel the need to state in an out-of-place manner the blatantly obvious, and exposition scenes happen in almost every episode. They did an alright job of keeping me entertained with the visuals, but the dialogue became fairly irritating every so often. It's definitely a problem that's hard to miss. Finally, before moving on, I want to talk about character development. Lots of the characters have very clear motivations, and some characters have their lives cut short before they can fulfill their dreams, which does help to make their demises more painful. However, lots of characters especially seem to lack development. I think Esdeath's elite assassin team could have definitely had more development, which could have been fixed as easily as introducing them later. It would have been so much more interesting, and you would have had a much more powerful emotional resonance with the the characters and an audience member It also would've made some certain showdowns with other characters way more emotionally impactful and less one-sided, but I'd like to stay away from spoilers as much as possible. One character, in particular, I would like to address is Akame. Both the title of the show as well as the openings and endings highlight her in particular, so you would think her being the protagonist of the show is a safe bet. However, she gets significantly less screentime than you would expect, and instead, the show probably should have been called Tatsumi Ga Kill! as most of the show clearly follows Tatsumi's journeys and interactions, many of which do not include Akame in the slightest. Akame is also one of the main characters with the least development in the entire show. It does a good job of establishing her past and relationship with certain characters, but Akame ends up being a pretty static character throughout her time in the show.

Now, I would like to talk about the atmosphere and tone of the show, which I think it handles nicely. The constant themes of death and violence are prominently present and never forgotten about, and, as I stated before, the show does a great job at nailing how the empire is in a state of despair and horror. The show manages to accomplish lots of the tones through its soundtrack, which is not outstanding or exceptional, but does a great job for adding another layer of depth to the battle scenes or otherwise, whether it's a tense or despair-filled moment, the music helps set the mood very well. The visuals and animations are about average, the fight scenes sometimes feeling like our vision is restricted so the animators have to do less work, but are overall interesting enough. A neat touch during some scenes of the show is this unique art style, one that really emphasizes the characters and their emotions, which are oftentimes delusion or hatred. It doesn't appear as much as I would personally like, but it definitely helps add some layer of uniqueness to scenes, though whether you like it or not is completely up to you, I personally enjoy the touch. One sizeable complaint I have about the show's themes presented, however, relates to the stupid-audience treatment I mentioned earlier. The show bashes you over the head over and over with its themes, and it would take a complete idiot not to take away something the show is trying to say about killing and the work and struggles the characters go through. Fights and dialogue give a nice shoving down the throat of these themes, and the show definitely could have taken a more subtle approach to this. Something that contrasts almost everything I've mentioned, however, is the show's humor. Throughout the series, the characters are cracking jokes fairly often, which debatably breaks the atmosphere, but I feel it helps make the character interactions feel more natural, though I agree it definitely could have been toned down in some places where the darker themes of the show should have taken the spotlight. For that matter, the show definitely could have had a more grounded and gritty feel to it with both the art style and color choices, which in the actual product are fairly standard, and it would have accompanied the atmosphere much of the show goes for very well in my opinion. The humor would definitely have to be more grounded and/or toned down if that were the case, and the show would have a much different feel to it, but I think it would've worked nicely. However, that's just my personal opinion, and you don't have to agree with me.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching Akame Ga Kill. I loved the characters, and the premise and battles will stick with me for some time. Despite its many flaws, there are a good amount of things the show does well, and I think the problem is less what it did wrong and more what it could've done better. Overall, I would rate Akame Ga Kill! a solid 6/10, and I would recommend it to someone not necessarily looking for something outstanding but a very fun ride (and someone who can handle gore of course). Thanks for reading my review, and have a great day! <3