So, an anime with tags like "Drama, Romance, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Mystery" and a "whopping" score of 8.22 for only 11 episodes? I was so excited at the prospect of watching a real gem of an anime, and thought I couldn't possibly not like this series. I would surely be in for one hell of a ride!
Dear Lord was I wrong... Though it was one hell of a ride, I rode straight into a big pile of disappointment and feelings of betrayal. No doubt the first episode looked promising; the story looked like it could develop in so many interesting ways, but then it almost felt like the show's shot callers did a complete 180 and decided to ruin HnE in the utmost cruelest way. I had to check multiple times if I was indeed watching the right anime. Was I losing my sanity? How could that many people think so highly of this show and I can't even bring myself to watch the 3rd episode? Was I missing something? For sure I'm missing something! I'll just keep watching; the story is bound to get better soon, that's why it got so many rave reviews. I forced myself to watch the other episodes, but when I reached episode 8, I could no longer bear it. I felt like if I watched any longer, no amount of watching reruns of my favourite animes could ever erase the memory of having watched HnE.
The story (3/10) could have been amazing. But after episode 1, the show kept adding so many other elements to the story, that in the end I was still not sure what the central theme was. There were also some real head scratching scenes which made me doubt if this show shouldn't add the genre "magic" to it. As for comedy? Besides Akira's public display of nudity in episode 1 (which would catch anyone off guard imo), I couldn't even muster a meek smile for the supposedly "funny" scenes.
*****SPOILERS
1. A complete stranger comes up to you and asks for your pants? Sure, just hand them over. The police asking people to see their wieners in order to identify them? Sure, just drop your pants.
2. So 10 missiles strike Japan and not one single victim was killed? Uh, sure... I guess that... could've, might've happened?
3. A magic phone that grants your every request? ... I think I might've missed the "Magic" tag for this show somewhere.
4. White zombie like creatures that come out of broken electronic equipment and start hugging the MC? I guess I might've missed the "horror" tag somewhere as well.
5. A character who gets off by kidnapping rapists/sex-offenders and then cutting off their Johnnies? And she's almost killed over 20.000 men? Oh, and she was chosen as one of the 12 people who were supposed to lead the nation in the right path? But then the male MC decides that he could save this psychopath by having sex with her? Uh... I think I lost it. *****
However, besides the story being a complete disaster, the animation and sound of HnE weren't bad. The animation and most of the soundtrack (6/10) in my opinion, were more suited to a romance/slice of life themed story than the Sci-Fi heavy themed HnE. I believe that the relationship between story and art is dynamic: if a story is great, even if the accompanying art is not up to par, the story will find a way to shine. And vice versa: if the art is great, even a mediocre story will get praise. But in HnE's case, the disconnection between the art and story was too obvious.
And the animation for the OP was well-done: it really gave me this "anarchy, democracy" kind of feel. Traitor!!!! Biggest misleading OP animation I've ever encountered...
The VA's delivered solid performances; none of them sounded off and voiced their characters well.
As for the characters (3/10), of the main duo, Akira is the more interesting one. Who wouldn't think that after he made such a grand entrance? I thought he'd turn out to be the "always smiling and charismatic but actually a real dark personality"-type of character; boy was I disappointed. In the end, he was all charm and nothing else: no fighting skills (damn you for baiting me with the Jason Bourne reference), no amazing analytical skills, nope, none, nada.
Saki, our main female lead, only has one selling point: cuteness. But being cute can never be the only trait of a character when she's supposed to be the heroine of the story. I kept hoping she would do something, anything to contribute to the story (as awful as it was) other than gawk and blush at Akira. If you like heroines like her, than be my guest and enjoy HnE.
Oh, I forgot. There was one thing I really enjoyed from HnE though, and that was Akira's dog. If it wasn't for the dog, the score for enjoyment (3/10) would have definitely gone down.
To put it bluntly, HnE in the beginning was like a mouth watering steak; then someone decided that all elements of the food pyramid need to be included in the dish and they added bread, lettuce, bananas, strawberries etc and served it up. In the end, it gave me a bout of diarrhoea I won't forget so easily. Well, at least I enjoyed the OP (and to a lesser extent the ED) while I was relieving myself.
