Arve Rezzle: Kikaijikake no Yousei-tachi

Young Animator Training Project/Anime Mirai short reviews: Part 9/12

The previous Young Animator Training Projects have had a very family friendly sort of tone with well told stories and universal themes. Arve Rezzle then comes along and says "fuck that, let's do some light novel bullshit about a teenager who wants to bang his sister!" and we get this mess.

OK there's a little more to it than that. It's a sci-fi story based around this social network which you upload your mind to, except one day suddenly everyone's minds get temporarily separated from their bodies and they lose all their memories. The idea here is that ... you don't know whether the body you've returned to is actually yours, which is a fascinating concept. Unfortunately in Arve Rezzle it is just that. A concept. I gather this was supposed to originally be a much longer TV series or OVA. Instead we get this hacked together story that barely has any characterisation, hasn't got enough time to explain its technobabble, introduces villains whose motives are seemingly non-existent, and ends by solving absolutely nothing about the central focus of the story.

Then there's it's very light novel approach to characterisation, in that the male character has no personality beyond wanting to bone his sister, and the female character's first appearance is totally naked. The camera has some serious male gaze going on, looking up her skirt and around her tits, to the point you can practically hear the heavy mouth-breather behind the camera muttering "yes imouto-chan, just lift that *huurrrrrrr* skirt a little bit *hhuuurrrrrrr* higher please". The animation is also kinda bad, which is surprising considering the incredibly high quality all the other YATP had. It's just all round a poorly thought out, poorly put together package that has no right existing in this form.

Verdict: Skip

Twenty minutes of my life I won't get back.

I'll give this anime credit where it deserves it. The initial story concept is decent. Also the art, and voice acting were alright. Besides that it was terrible. The characters are boring. The most fleshed out characters only defined personality trait is that he wants to sleep with his sister. The stories premise raises way to many questions for a one episode release, and answers none of them. Even if this were a complete series I would have dropped it here because the characters didn't hold my interest, and the plot was a complete mystery.