- Last OnlineOct 25, 2021 7:50 PM
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- Birthday1993
- LocationEast Coast, USA
- JoinedJul 6, 2015
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Oct 9, 2021
Story: There is nothing particularly great or exceptional about the story however it is a great median for everything else this anime has to offer, particularly the art.
Art: Spectacular. The art is highly stylized. There is a lot of over the top violence that looks brutal but not grotesque.
Sound: Op is an absolute banger.
Character: Fairly interesting characters with some amount of depth given, but nothing really to write home about (at least yet)
Enjoyment: I've thoroughly enjoyed my time with it so far. The over-the-top violence, the occasional slap stick goofiness, the tinge of shounen power dynamics and growth, the classic "demons vs." story
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schtick are all amplified by what I consider to be an incredibly appealing art style and presentation all blend together to be significantly more enjoyable than I expected it to be.
Overall: I have no problem giving this an 8/10 and the current 7.73 score on MAL I would say is fairly appropriate. I consider this a "Might as well watch if you're caught up on seasonals and have some spare time".
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Apr 10, 2017
TL;DR: At the moment I recommend watching the first 20 episodes that were adapted from the source material, then dropping it for the manga or your next show for non-manga fanboy related reasons.
I'm not going to lie, I'm a little butt hurt about this one. The first 20 episodes were at least an 8 in my book. One of the better Shounen anime I've seen in a little while. I couldn't understand why it had such sub-par reviews. At first I thought it was another World Trigger in the sense that it would take some time to warm up to it, but never get
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the chance to really shine because of a lack of support. Twin Star Exorcists is in a different boat.
I'm not a die hard manga fan, at all. As a matter of fact, I hardly read any manga, but I've watched enough anime to tell when a show has diverged from source material. There is usually a significant drop in progression, consistency, and intrigue involving the plot and characters. This makes it hard to rate overall, and I may wind up adjusting this review after I finish, admittedly forcibly, watching the last half of what appears to be an imminent train wreck.
Now the first 20 episodes weren't perfect or transcendent by any means. The community has every right to expect high quality content and admonish the not so high quality content, but I believe people expecting every show with the slightest bit of promise to turn in to the next Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood have their heads up there arses. I'm nowhere near that picky, and if my defense of World Trigger has yet to clue you in, I am also an uncultured swine who is easily entertained. Sorry, not sorry.
I like the cheesy anime tropes and running gags, even those that have been beaten with a stick repeatedly. Yes, those. Character obsessed with a certain food, mascot character, fan service character, hard-ass character that's really a softy, and I'm probably omitting a few in this series that have also been used ad nauseum. These might be deal breakers to some of you, but they are staples of the Shounen genre in my opinion.
I love the gritty side to the story. The deaths, the pain, the suffering are all well presented. I'm a sucker for that sympathetic shock value, and cheap plot twist producing deus ex machina, so much so that I can forgive occasional sub-par writing such as a horribly sudden and forced "This must be a power of the twin stars" in place of quality progression.
I liked the dub-steppish BGM, wasn't crazy about the intros and endings despite the fact some of the sounds remind me of some bands I like. Even though it's sung by a female the one intro feels kind of like a cross between Taking Back Sunday and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. To me at least.
The animation is okay in my book. Nothing breathtaking, but nothing detrimental as well.
I'm not a big fan of Benio's Seiyuu at times. Her voice gets on my nerves occasionally, but it was of a diminutive impact to me. Her character took me a little bit to warm up to and that may have contributed. Rokuro's voice really makes both the comedy and the serious parts work. You got a love-to-hate antagonist and a hard-to-hate-despite-being-a-total-bastard antagonist whom are both excellent 'bad guys'.
But everything that made this a good watch has disappeared post-haste as of episode 21. I expected a time skip but I didn't expect them to diverge almost completely from the ongoing plot. Instead it's some monster of the week bull shit leading up to a non-canon filler ending. My least favorite of which was a blatant Don Flamingo rip off art-wise. It is seriously like some video game shit. They just rendered him different colors. Its ridiculous that a group of employed individuals thought that was a good idea. Crazier yet, that idea was financed and came to fruition! That's almost as bad as doing a filler arc(s) longer than the canon arc. Naruto didn't even try that shit! Well they may have, they just didn't actually do it. Much like Log Horizon season 2, the series is beginning to feel like a dead waste of time. It's not terrible, for filler at least, it's just such an obvious downgrade of everything it already had going for it.
It's such a shame that so few series ever get adapted start to finish or accurately. *Sigh* Here's hoping this is a lesson learned for the anime industry. I won't hold my breath.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 12, 2015
Shiki had such an awesome premise, however, from my perspective it fails to do that premise any justice. I will try my best to give a feel for the story, spoiler free of course. The story and artwork just weren't my cup of tea, but I understand some might enjoy this type of story / cast so I will attempt to avoid outright trolling.
STORY
I was very disappointed in the story for a lot of reasons. It progresses painfully slow, and the character development eventually drops just about everyone in the 'gray area' between good and bad. So basically by the time the climax comes
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around you have nobody to root for. You don't care if any of the main characters survive, shiki or human.
ART / SOUND
This is what ruined it for me. I probably would have enjoyed the story more if the art wasn't so ridiculous. The hair on some of the characters...the hair. It's like Super Saiyans on crack. Gravity defiant, logic defying hair that makes the living humans look undead even though they're still alive. The elderly and even some of the young characters (Masao in particular) look hideous right from the start. It's not scary, in my opinion it's just unpleasant to look at. There's not much to say about the Sound. It didn't really leave an impression. The sound effects weren't always used the best way (I.E. Excessive cracking noises coming from a Shiki that is barely moving it's neck)
CHARACTERS
A lot of the characters are so incessantly obnoxious to the point where you want them to die. Then they die. Then you realize crap this is Shiki, I have to wait for them to die a second time before I'm through with their BS. Even the characters you like in the beginning betray those good qualities by the middle / end. One more thing, chain smoking doctors aren't cool. You're supposed to be a doctor dammit, save those cigarettes for us non-doctors.
CONCLUSION
Shiki failed to live up to my expectations. I feel like Shiki never intended to give you a likeable cast. The point of the story is to submerge you in moral ambiguity with a bunch of mediocre characters and slow moving plot. Most likely the goal was to have the viewer ask him or herself in the aftermath of the climax "What was (morally) good? What was bad? Was anybody really in the right?". It's left up to the viewer to decide without the anime deciding which side was 'right' for you. Unfortunately, at least in my case, by the time I got to that point I didn't really care enough about the story, the characters, or the ending to think too hard about it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 8, 2015
Let me start out by saying if you were expecting some entirely dark and gory mess, you probably won't enjoy this anime. I went into it with an open mind and I feel like that is why I thoroughly enjoyed it. I practically marathoned through all 24 episodes. Now onto the review
STORY
If I had to pick the major faults with this story they would be as follows:
1) Often times the story is rushed forward quicker than you'd like, and there are some aspects revealed by characters to characters instead of actually showing them to you traditionally or in a flashback. It doesn't overly
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detract from the plot, however, they are fairly small things that don't have an extremely large impact on the story as a whole.
2) The comic relief doesn't always blend in because of how fast the story progresses at times. The comedic parts are funny at times and they play an important role in the story, but it is a bit odd to go from morbid settings and events to 'Your fly is down' jokes.
3) It ends. The problem with all good stories. The ending is pretty much final and set in stone and a spin off series would be a stretch. You wish things wouldn't have progressed so quickly which circles back to my first point.
Now the praise:
It really is an edge of your seat ride. You never know what's next, how exactly the story will progress, who's going to die next. You aren't always rooting for the good guys in this one. The story does a great job showing both sides of the coin, the gray areas that apply to Absolute Good and Absolute Evil. As the story progresses and the characters develop you realize they aren't just fighting for their respective side. You might think certain characters are absolute bastards that you can't wait for them to die, but their are very few recurring characters that you could say without a doubt are absolutely evil.
ART/SOUND
I'm not a picky guy with either of these as long as the art and soundtrack isn't terrible. Lots of gore. Bisections, decapitation, etc and the soundtrack does a good job complimenting the mood the anime is taking at the appropriate time. The characters are well designed and well drawn in my non-expert opinion.
CHARACTERS
The characters are fantastic. Some of the back story's are rushed or not all that moving when compared to others. Some aren't developed well enough but despite that you wind up caring for most of them in one way or another. You never know who is going to die or when except when the presentation makes it obvious, and because of this you're on the edge of your seat every fight.
ENJOYMENT
This anime has a bit of everything. Death, Gore, Yandere, Romance, Comedy, Fan Service, and even some ecchi and harem aspects on a much less overt level than would be seen in those 2 genres. They don't always blend together best but they're more like hiccups on an exhilarating ride than actual detractions. If you go into this one with the right expectations it's hard not to enjoy. It's a fairly dark anime seasoned with several other genres. You are not going to have some philosophical epiphany due to the fantastic deepness of the plot, but it will make you think and it will absolutely keep you entertained on some level.
OVERALL 8/10
It could have been better, but it's nothing to complain about. I wasn't sure what to expect out of this one and I was pleasantly surprised. If the last couple anime you've watched weren't what you were hoping for, I would absolutely recommend you catapult this to the top of your watch list
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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