Story: 6/10
The show starts off in an unexpected way: A girl backflipping over a fence and stabbing our male lead in the heart. Extremely surprising, to say the least. However, he isn't dead. Akihito Kanbara is immortal so needless to say, being stabbed in the chest doesn't kill him.
And here we are introduced to our two main characters. We have Mirai, shunned due to her blood manipulation powers, and Akihito, existing as an immortal half-youmu.
So what's a youmu? Similar to Madoka Magica's concept of witches and Noragami's Phantoms, youmu are born out of the ill wishes and curses of people. Spirit World Warriors, of which Mirai is a part, make a living off of hunting them down. Since this isn't the first show to do this, it's not an original concept, but at least in this show if you're a good warrior you can make a lot of money killing these things (whereas in Madoka Magica and Noragami it's more of a charity duty; I know I'm skimming over details, but here is not the place to explain the plots of other shows).
However, Mirai dislikes drawing attention to her abnormal powers (I mean, she uses a sword made out of her own hardened blood. How badass is that?), so while she is a powerful Spirit World Warrior, she lacks experience and is pretty poor too, buying discounted food and struggling to make each month's rent.
Anyway, the story takes a while to get its feet under itself. We bounce around from arc to arc, each segment taking only a couple of episodes apiece, and finally in the last few episodes, we move to our main plot. I think there's two potential areas of improvement here:
1. Making the show longer, so to have each arc give us maximum impact (the Hollow Shadow arc? Ouch).
2. If there was no way to make the show longer, keeping the story focused on its central plot would have kept us from being detracted into side stories (like episode 6) and made the story more cohesive from start to finish.
Don't get me wrong, I liked all the little mini-arcs. But that led to the main plot feeling rushed and squeezed in at the last minute. I would have liked it to be more drawn-out.
We also have the enigma that is episode 6. I'm still not entirely sure what happened in development to lead to that. Still, it's an amusing episode to say the least.
Basically, some youmu that's worth a crazy amount appears on the top of the kids' school rooftop. They try to kill it, but that fails and they have to regroup. Long story short, their overly elaborate plot doesn't work, and the youmu gets away.
The stink that the youmu sprays on them apparently doesn't go away until they defeat it, and since they never do, I suppose the characters just smell really bad for the rest of the show. It's a weird little plot hole, but I enjoyed the episode and the insert song, so whatever.
Episode 6 serves as a nice break before we start moving back into dark fantasy, though this time it gets darker than it did before.
We also move into the main plot, which is somewhat confusing in terms of worldbuilding and leaves you to figure out stuff for yourself. It's weak on the technical side, but everything besides that is better in my opinion.
The ending of the show is controversial, since a lot of people say it was a cop-out and a gaping plot hole. The plot hole part may be true, but as someone who watched the show as it was airing, I can say that I was hoping above all else for that particular ending so I didn't mind when they gave it to us.
Also, we're getting a sequel movie pretty soon so I'm assuming we're at least going to get an explanation for this ending.
Overall, the plot isn't super original and it takes a while for the main story to get itself up and going, but I still liked the ideas the show presented, even if it didn't execute them all that well.
Art: 9/10
This show is done by Kyoto Animation, who normally does drama/slice of life/romance anime, so it's interesting to see them experiment with "dark fantasy," which is what Kyoukai no Kanata is.
The fighting animation is very fluid and nice-looking, and always a pleasure to watch. I didn't like it when I first watched the show, but rewatching it I think my past self was crazy. I also think the reason I didn't like it is because the fight animation only lasts a couple of seconds or less between cuts. So it's a bit jarring, especially after I was used to animes with drawn-out shots of action scenes. However, in between the cuts, the movement is very nice. There's also a lot of small details, from the dust that Mirai kicks up with her legs to the bubbles floating in her sword to the colorful sparks thrown up whenever weapons clash. The Cages made by Spirit World Warriors to contain a certain area also contain lots of colors and look very nice.
Backgrounds are a given. Gorgeous, as can be expected of Kyoani. Especially in the opening scene, a sunset from a rooftop, they are detailed and colorful and very nice to look at.
One thing that stuck out to me when I first watched the show, and one that I continued to notice rewatching it, is that they don't use the same shot for very long before switching. Live-action shows cut camera every time a character speaks, and this show does the same. I think that's because Kyoani has a lot of money and can afford to draw new shots for every second of the show.
Really, the only complaint I have is that sometimes during fights, and at some other seemingly random times, there'd be a lack of shading on the characters. I'm not sure what was up with that, but it was kind of distracting to move from the beautiful lighting and shading to a lack thereof.
The other complaint I have is the two-second shot of Akihito in the ED. The way he's drawn is reminiscent of the train wreck that is episode 9 of Mekakucity Actors. I'm not sure what possessed Kyoani to draw him that way. If you've seen the show, you may remember what I'm talking about.
Aside from that, both the OP and ED have outstanding animation. The OP has gorgeous backgrounds with amazing lighting and raindrops on a window that look realistic, as well as characters fighting and twirling weapons. The ED features textures and colors abound, as well as a lot of symbolism. The characters don't move around much (most of the ED is Mirai with her arm outstretched), but the backgrounds and other details are what make it truly special.
Sound: 8/10
The opening of this show, "Beyond the Boundary," (not the most original title, but whatever) is sung by the voice actor of one of the main characters. The song's beginning and ending are kind of mellow, but the middle part is fast-paced and awesome. It's a good opening all around.
The ending song is called "Daisy," performed by Stereo Dive Foundation. It's also a pretty mellow song, but a very good one. I also love the "I never say goodbye" at the end of it, since I think that especially suits the show.
As far as OST, I really like the soundtrack of this show. It's kind of creepy and spooky, but appropriately bubbly and upbeat during the happier moments. One issue I do have is that they'd often recycle pieces too much. One time, they even finished playing one song and then just started it right over again (and I noticed this because I happen to have this song on my iPod, so I hear it a lot). I have no idea how many songs are in the total soundtrack, but I did notice the lack of variety.
And the insert song performed in episode 6, Future Star, is just as the characters describe it: sickly sweet but actually pretty catchy. It's a cute song.
This show has no dub, and I'm kind of glad since if it did get one it'd likely be an ADV dub and I dislike ADV dubs.
The Japanese cast does a fine job with voices and voice acting. I also found it surprising how Mirai's voice actor, Risa Taneda, voices Saki in Shinsekai Yori since the two sound almost nothing alike. Mirai has a very cute and high-pitched voice, but despite her voice, she portrays the proper negative emotions when it's needed.
Characters: 7/10
What a strange misfit cast of dorks we have in this show.
There's Mirai Kuriyama, our protagonist. She's the moe cuteness obligatory in every Kyoani work. Glasses, skinny body, fluffy hair, high voice, the works. She has the catchphrase "How unpleasant!" which she utters whenever possible. But despite all the cuteness, Mirai is isolated due to her strange powers, and is unwilling to interact with others in the beginning. She also confesses early on that she has killed a person with her own two hands. That's a pretty shocking statement coming from someone like her, who hates killing youmu because of the thought of death.
Mirai is also apparently pretty clumsy, tripping over everything in the first episode, but despite her clumsiness, she is able to perform complicated aerial maneuvers (like backflipping over her school's fence) and fight confidently with her blood sword. It's somewhat contradictory.
And on that note, there's a lot of defying physics in this show without a reason why. But whatever, since a lot of animes defy physics without bothering to explain why.
Next we have Akihito Kanbara, our male lead. As explained, he's half-youmu, and has a powerful youmu consciousness inside his body, though luckily his human mind is in control most of the time. However, when Akihito's life is in peril, the youmu inside him awakes, and he develops a nasty tendency to attack everything around him.
Despite the fact that Mirai kicks off the show by trying to kill him over and over again, Akihito is sympathetic toward her and helps her hunt down youmu, buys her food, and even offers to help cover her rent. He's a pretty sweet guy to be so nice to someone who tried to kill him, but that's just his nature I guess.
We do meet his mother a couple of times, but she's pretty irrelevant and mostly fanservice. I would like to know about his father though, since they don't mention him once in the show. Same for the rest of the parents in this show, actually. We know nothing of Mirai's family or anyone else's.
The one thing I dislike about Akihito's character is his over-the-top glasses fetish. As someone who wears glasses, it made me happy to hear him talking about how pretty girls with glasses are, but his obsession with them borders on unrealistic. He's constantly trying to get the other characters in glasses and he has a weird obsession with Mirai since she wears glasses. Yes, those two are cute, but I think we could do without the fetishes. You can write a cute relationship without one of them obsessing over the other's accessories.
The other two main characters are Mitsuki and Hiromi Nase, siblings from the rich Nase family of Spirit World Warriors. Mitsuki is pretty apathetic most of the time, eating lollipops and calling the guys perverts. She's a Spirit World Warrior who specializes in Cages and has a catlike youmu as a pet. She also refuses to go along with her older brother's strange requests.
Which brings us to Hiromi. His fetish makes Akihito's look almost normal by comparison: He has a little sister complex, and is constantly trying to get Mitsuki to call him "Onii-chan," which she purposely avoids. I'm not sure why Japan loves incestual relationships so much, but there you have it.
To be honest, Hiromi's character would actually be pretty interesting if he wasn't constantly exclaiming how pretty his little sister is. He fights with the scarf he always wears, is a pro at Cages, and has an interesting history with Akihito. But alas, he's pretty much no more than a fetish creep.
As far as minor characters, we have Sakura Inami who I've heard is an anime-only character, but I'm not sure about that. She starts out with a personal vendetta against Mirai for spoilery reasons, but pulls the quickest 180 I've ever seen in a character.
There's also Mitsuki and Hiromi's older sister, Izumi Nase. She's got an interesting plot twist in the last episodes but it's unfortunately never capitalized on. Maybe we can get some more info in the sequel movie, but who knows.
Then there's Miroku, who in some ways is the villan of this story, but he's mostly just an interfering asshole.
There's several other minor characters, but none of them are relevant to the story to be honest. They're mostly just there and don't really have any outstanding characteristics.
Enjoyment: 9/10
As I mentioned, I watched this series back when it was airing. My friends and I had some pretty amusing predictions in hindsight, and there was a lot of yelling and crying whenever a new episode would come out (I'm talking the last few episodes, by the way). The light novels are not fully translated, so we were all at a loss for what would happen next.
So yeah, as someone who watched this and had no idea what would happen next, my enjoyment of this show was quite high. Even rewatching it, when I noticed a lot of problems, I still finished my rewatch in two days and enjoyed every minute of it.
Overall: 7/10
It's not the best show out there, but it has great audiovisuals and a pretty interesting cast of characters despite their shortcomings and fetishes. The story is pretty good too, but I wish it'd gotten to its point sooner.
I think this show is a must-watch, especially for those fond of Kyoani's usual works, to see how different this one is. Though it contains slice of life elements, it's a far cry from their typical works and shows how heartbreaking and ruthless Kyoani can be (That movie preview? Brutal). And if you just like a plain old action anime, that fulfills this desire too, since there's really pretty fighting animation and some interesting concepts, even if said concepts don't get fully capitalized on.
