Creators:
Shō AikawaDirected by:
Seiji MizushimaCinematography:
Kôjirô HayashiCast:
Aki Toyosaki, Ken'ichi Suzumura, Shin'ichirō Miki, Tomokazu Seki, Daisuke Namikawa, Akeno Watanabe, Kenji Nojima, Megu Ashiro, Nana Mizuki (more)VOD (1)
Episodes(13)
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The Witch Girl of Tokyo (S01E01)
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Inside the "Black Fog" (S01E02)
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An Iron Couple (S01E03)
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Japan "Beast" History Part 1 (S01E04)
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Japan "Beast" History Part 2 (S01E05)
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They Are Always Laughing (S01E06)
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Go Beyond the Sky and Stars (S01E07)
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Nobody Knows About the Rainbow Knight (S01E08)
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End of the Endless Family (S01E09)
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Mirage of Destiny (S01E10)
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Justice / Freedom / Peace (S01E11)
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Hakko Superhuman Crash Incident (S01E12)
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Riots in Shinjuku (S01E13)
Reviews (1)
This show is garishly colorful, strange, and slightly crazy. Unfortunately, it is also crammed with way too much and, in some ways, very chaotic. In other words, the anime's creators (and I am not at all surprised that it was made by the Bones studio again) were given practically almost unlimited space for their creativity. A universe was created where almost anything is possible and where, at least according to the anime's premise, virtually anything could happen. As with Blood Blockade Battlefront, for example, the potential was simply enormous, and even in this show, you could see the anime's creators playing around with it quite a bit at times. The biggest problem for me, though, is the narrative. The show does not work due to the lack of clarification. They are also constantly jumping to "before" and "after" in the episodes. It is, therefore, confusing. Surely the anime's creators probably want to stimulate the viewer's imagination and want them to think about this, although for me, they failed to do so, so you could not engage with this anime series. Furthermore, the longer I watched it, the more the narrative's main ideas seemed all too familiar. Practically from the beginning, I thought: "In which movie is there a story about a group of people with supernatural abilities who live in seclusion and oppressed by society, and among whom there is some doubt that their uniqueness destines them to rule a society?" Yes, I have just rather clumsily described the X-men movie franchise, and the inspiration of the franchise seems strong here, even if the form of the "superhumans" in this show has pretty much been adapted to Japanese tastes (Magical girls, Mecha, etc.). However, unlike in the X-men, as mentioned earlier, there was no atmosphere in this show at all. The narrative was rather too colorful, episodic, and chaotic, whereas, with this kind of content, I would probably prefer something much darker and more coherent. Furthermore, the world did not impress me very much either, just as I was not impressed by the "Superhuman Bureau" organization around which it was all supposed to take place. The anime's creators failed to get me to care much about any of the characters. Even now, I do not remember anyone's name. For example, I only know that there is a blonde ghost in the form of a small child, a strange magical girl with some weird creature living in her cleavage, a time-traveling human/leopard. While those connections sound pretty interesting and original, I was not impressed by any of them while watching. Of the supporting characters, the only one I remember is Earth-chan because seeing her made me smile at least a little. It is true that I thought things got a bit better at the end and that I started to see some hint of atmosphere and preparation for the big (season) conclusion. There were some unexpected twists; however, unfortunately for me, they fizzled out again and only confirmed that the anime's creators had watched X-men. All in all, I thought the anime's creators managed to make a minimal experience out of maximum potential. So I should be disappointed; however, I threw in the fact that I did not like the animation (it is just too garish, and unfortunately, it does not suit the show), and the soundtrack was not very impressive. It would be a rather below-average show, but the potential is just there, and it still had an epic first-season conclusion. Because it will continue with another season (spring 2016) where many things could be unraveled - in other words, because of the hope that it can only get better, I am going to award a rating according to this, that is a weak average. 4.7/10.
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