Note From the Author: This review is a little outdated. If I'm being honest, while I still don't exactly like this show, I do think I was a tad harsh on it. Its action actually rather grew on me recently, and I no longer believe that the lack of nuance surrounding the Empire is that big an issue. That said, I do largely stand by everything else I said here. Nowadays my rating for it would be 40. If you still want to give this review a read, I hope you enjoy!
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This is a slightly edited/updated version of my original Akame ga Kill! review from 2018. The original (bit cringier) version can be found here: https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=294964

Akame ga Kill! is a great example of trying to bite off more than one can chew. The show has an incredibly large cast of characters, a plot about war that takes itself completely seriously and no time to properly explore any of it.

The story follows a young warrior named Tatsumi who ventures into the Empire's Capital hoping to earn money that would help save his village. Due to various whacky hijinks involving a family of psychotic sadists, Tatsumi learns about the corrupt and deeply sinister nature of the Empire, the ruler of which is a nine-year old child who had to assume control after the demise of his parents. Unfortunately, his young age makes him easy to manipulate for the despicable Prime Minister, Honest. Tatsumi ends up being forcefully recruited by a rebellious group of assassins known as Night Raid, whose main objective is to kill the Prime Minister and bring light back to their bleak world.

This is a generic set-up but on its own it's harmless. The problem lies in its frankly embarrassing attempts at nuance. While it is true that not every AGK villain is purely evil, the show never once even tries to showcase the actual benefits of living under the current regime or the negative effects of Night Raid's actions. Whenever the innocents are suffering the perpetrators are always the Imperial goons and the assassins are always the good guys. But I mean hey, there really are governments on Earth that have no redeeming qualities. The thing is though, they are usually driven by some sort of an ideology and AGK’s Empire doesn’t have one of those either. They are just dicks. This would not be such a big deal but this show really does genuinely make attempts to get the viewer to sympathise with its antagonists even though it makes no effort to make their cause worth sympathising with or give them a believable worldview (for the most part) instead of being entirely on Night Raid's side. The Empire is evil just because they are and, as a result, uninteresting.

Perhaps there would be more time to flesh out the more subtle inner workings of the war if the show was not trying to cram the story that could easily go on for 50 episodes into just 24. The narrative of AGK is beyond rushed and because of that character development is rare. And even if someone does develop, it is handled poorly and breezed through (e.g. Bulat's character development in Episode 8 ultimately came down to a bunch of exposition being screamed over a fight scene). As a result, it becomes impossible to get truly attached to anyone. Which is a shame because there actually are some characters in this who had some potential. Most were completely worthless. Just a bunch of bland (Najenda and Tatsumi), unlikeable (Chelsea), annoying (Lubbock and Leone), cardboard cut-outs. But among them there were those select few bright spots. For example, Mine who did actually have genuinely interesting ideals and motives. Or Seryu, a severely psychologically broken law enforcer who takes a great deal of pleasure in enacting """justice""" upon anyone whom she considers evil. And her definition of evil is pretty damn broad. Characters that really should be far more interesting than they ended up being if only they got some more development. Coming back to the examples listed previously, Mine’s motives go unexplored beyond just establishing them in an exposition dumb near the beginning of the show. And Seryu, while pretty entertaining in how insane she is, is never developed at all. We get to learn about what made her the way she is and after that she is just a purely evil character.

And then there are the likes of Esdeath who are developed, but very poorly. Her arc is mainly done through her getting a school girl crush on Tatsumi. And the viewer is supposed to find it funny and charming even though Esdeath is a raging psychopath whose favourite pass-time is torturing people. Yeah.

Another issue with how the show handles its characters is the rapid pace at which it's killing them off. The fact that after a certain point there is at least one major character death every episode or two, not only made it hard for them to resonate individually but it also made them very predictable. And yes, the weapons that the characters use, the Imperial Arms do have that rule placed upon them that when the users clash at least one has to die, but quite frankly that rule did not need to be there. It added to nothing, outside of serving as an excuse for the characters to get axed off faster.

As for the visuals, Akame ga Kill! feels largely uninspired. The landscapes and general location designs are incredibly generic and forgettable making the world feel rather bland and not immersive. The fact that there is next to no lore to speak of (beyond just a story about how the Imperial Arms came to be that delivered via an exposition dump) does not help. Most of the fight scenes are either way too overblown and all over the place to have much tension and using some largely underwhelming choreography or borderline feel like slideshows with some music played over them (e.g. the Zank fight in Episode 4 mostly consisted of static images).

The soundtrack on the other hand was quite good. I don’t have a ton to say about it, but the tracks are quite well composed and memorable. I especially like the show’s second opening theme, Liar’s Mask. The voice acting (for the English dub) was all around decent even if there were no true stand-outs.

Overall, Akame ga Kill! has little good to offer. With its badly developed cast of characters, terrible plot, uninspired visuals, forgettable action and just general bad writing and pacing, this one is difficult to recommend unless you just want a little bit of braindead fun that won’t insult your intelligence too much. But even then, it honestly may be a bit too depressing for that.

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Oh wait, that’s right, Akame! I’ve somehow gone through the entire review without even mentioning the titular character. Oh, how silly of me uwu. Well Akame...she is...uh...nope, I’ve got nothing.