Kyousou Giga (TV)

Beautiful artwork, disappointing plot development.

Watch only if you don't mind unexplained motivations and emotional scenes that carry very little weight (due to unexplained or weak motivations).

It could be just me and my preference for certain types of plots, but I thought this held a lot of potential and was disappointed as a result. Reserving the reveals for the end left it feeling like a confused, mish-mash attempt at an ending with loopholes to make it work. It simply wasn't believable, even given the myth-like feel that it has.

There's beautiful artwork and an interesting plot line surrounding a very strange family (to say the least). The ... artwork is clean, colorful, and almost radiant, matching its strange characters in turn.

I appreciate how the anime crosses weird, clean-cut, advanced technology with folklore to create strange and interesting characters. Character-driven, there's a distant plotline that's followed, but the characters' internal struggles take front seat until the end (when the makeshift ending happens). Unexplained motivations, again, made for an unbelievable ending, but if you are willing to suspend belief and accept the fact that the ending will be sub-par, at best, then accept your fate and give the anime a shot.

God. I really wanted to like this anime, I really did, but I just couldn't.

The interesting, colorful art, cute character designs, and comparisons to some of my favorite anime was what led me to watch this. Sadly, I can't say the greatest things about this anime. The first episode is just one huge info dump then the next episode stuff just starts happening and they present the story, which intrigued me at first, in the least enjoyable way possible. It was just hard to follow.

Here's what watching this anime feels like. There's this book with an amazing, intriguing story, but someone spilled their water all ... over the book. Now the words all melted into each other and the book is a sopping wet mess, so you wait for the book to dry off and then go to read it. Oh no! The words all bled together. They're still legible, but barely. Now instead of enjoying the story, you're just trying to figure out what the hell the book even says. And now you have a headache.

The concept is so intriguing to me but it feels like almost NOTHING happens in this show. Except things are happening. The way they present it is so long-winded and nonsensical that it feels like nothing is happening. You have to sit through a bunch of boring stuff to get to the good parts. The first 5 episodes were a snore-fest and yeah, sometimes you gotta get through some boring episode to get to the good part, but not when the show was only ten episodes and not when they're honestly just wasting time. This story would've worked a lot better as a movie.

The way the show is presented is really colorful and vibrant, yet bland at the same time, which makes it hard to pay attention to because it's so boring, which then makes it hard to comprehend what's happening. When I finished the show I thought "What the fuck just happened". I was so confused I had to go read summaries of the episodes and when I did? I thought what was being described was really interesting and seemed like something I would love. The thing is that the plot would've worked better as a 1 and a half to 2-hour long movie. Instead, they made it a ten-episode series, making it twice as long as it needed to be. Maybe one day I'll give Kyousougiga another shot and try to pay more attention instead of staring at the scream like a zombie, but as of now, I couldn't get into it. It had such an interesting story but managed to execute it in the least interesting way possible.

Dammit anime industry, why are you sabotaging yourself like that?

Kyousougiga could have been a show ranking alongside highly acclaimed titles such as Tatami Galaxy, or Furi Kuri. It had the themes, the budget, the set-up, and the liveliness to achieve greatness.
… And messed it all up.

First things first; the 2013 version is a remake of the older one from the previous year. No reason to watch that one, other than scratching your head with Toei doing 3 versions of the EXACT same thing so close to each other (since there is an even older single episode set in the same universe).

Upon watching THIS version, be ... prepared to see 90% of the plot in the first episode. I am not kidding; the first episode is basically one huge infodump; introducing a cast of a dozen people, a bizarre setting where pictures can create alternative realities, a world that is like a second feudal Japan where nobody can die or nothing can break, and a bunch of themes that go deep into religion, philosophy, and existentialism. After you are bombarded with a gazillion things happening in a short amount of time, you are just left there wondering what the devil they can do with all that. Because they could do a heck of a lot, expand to anything they like, combine it with everything else, and create a 1000 episode series that is about everything and everyone. And what do they do with it?
… A 10 episode slice of life comedy about a goofy Japanese high school girl breaking stuff with a magic hammer. ARGH!

I am not saying it is not an enjoyable watch. There is a lot of stuff happening in each episode, accompanied by lots of jokes, and motion, and pretty colors, and weird imagery. We get to see how each character feels and acts and how his beliefs affect the world he is living in, a place where nothing changes, everything is perfect, and yet feels boring and sterile. It seems like everybody is looking for someone as means to fill the void in their souls.
… And they do so little with it.

It seems like while everybody REALLY wants to find salvation, they aren’t really looking for it. Each episode shows them being sad and depressed but they are otherwise just fooling around to the most part, taking part in all sorts of silly events and just talk about it. Meaning, they aren’t taking the whole situation seriously and by extension ruin the themes they set up so well in the beginning. Shame, since although it is a fine slice of life comedy, it doesn’t really do much with what it has, and essentially uses the interesting themes as dressing for plotless randomness. Granted, it is way more interesting and memorable thanks to its catchy animation and themes. It has lots of dialogues that offer immersion to the setting and a touch of existentialism pouring through everything. Yet it fails to be something truly amazing in the longrun for not being serious about its own premise. That is what made SE Lain and Haibane Renmei so amazing; the very fact that they weren’t comedies. And if some of you find them boring, well, you are not supposed to be watching them for what they were made to be. Kyousougiga was never made to be a bigshot series; it is sadly nothing more than a nice time waster. Why? Because instead of being about the exploration of interesting themes, it ends up being about a goofy Japanese high school girl breaking stuff with a magic hammer. ARGH!

Kyousougiga (6/10): There is my rating, if you want to know more about my rating system check the description down below. Time to dive into my potentially spoiler filled review.

This show initially drew me in with its unique designs but I stayed for the very unique world. The main issue is that even after finishing the show and watching the recap episode 10.5 I am still a little lost. The show tries to wrap it all up with “don’t worry the child of a god who is also kind of a god made everything so any oddities or inconsistencies you notice are not a ... problem.” While that answers the main question it is not a very satisfying conclusion in my book, but with all the crazy off the wall antics this show got up to I’m not sure they could have done it any other way. I found a larger issue with the son who is a human priest, he never made much sense to me. I get the feeling he is not from the main world because he appeared unaffected when the world was collapsing but I’m still unsure how that is possible. He also had a narrative of wanting to die but also being the chosen one for some reason that left me even more confused. I feel like I was watching a badly told mythology, one with odd pauses and off the wall logic told by a storyteller who isn’t exactly sure how to tell the story. Now I love me some mythology so that main hook and the crazy animation kept me intrigued enough to finish this show, but I can’t say it will be for everyone.

OBVIOUS SPOILERS BELOW

I’ve been trying to vary things up with my reviews recently – moving away from the general discussion of music, character plot in a formulaic fashion. Thankfully, all these elements of Kyousou Giga has been discussed to death in these reviews, so I’m going to diverge and talk a bit about what I do and don’t like in this show – any of those more detailed elements are otherwise easily found. I should also clarify that this is largely a criticism. Kyousou Giga is quite positively reviewed, and the majority of the popular reviews here fail to identify some of its major weaknesses ... – something I hope to address here.

First of all, looking at the narration, I’ve got to recognize the nonconventional (and nonlinear) style. It’s no mystery that I’m a fan of nonchronological works - for a series that explicitly identifies itself as one about destruction and rebirth I find it appropriate. The point of this narration style is that you actually don’t get most of the story in a massive exposition dump, at least unless you’re extremely perceptive or unusually attuned to the nuances. However, I do struggle quite a bit with the way in which Toei uses it. Nonchronological shows rely largely on character development to drive their audience’s interest, relying on the viewers to build the story and work out the details. Did I say nonchronological? Interestingly, most of this story is chronological, but the method of explaining the details absolutely isn’t. Instead, a lot of this character development, and thus the audience’s keys to working it out, is anti-chronological, meaning what we get more and more toward the end.

Now is this a bad thing? Not necessarily – as long as there’s enough to build the story. But what constantly frustrated me throughout my watch-though is that the details we do get don’t have the effect we’re looking for. Remember what I said earlier about character development driving the story? We get plenty of character development, but so little of it helps to push the story forward, all up until the final two or three episodes. Other reviewers have exhaustively discussed the details, so I’ll just use one example here. Inari claims that he wants to die (or disappear, if that’s your intended interpretation) no earlier than halfway through the final episode. Wouldn’t a detail so critical to his character development be valuable earlier on? Wouldn’t that help to draw the rebirth and destruction parallels much more strongly between Myoue and himself? We get plenty about his character throughout the show, but critical details that actually drive the story seem to be largely missing.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s elements of this suspension of details that I do really love in this show. A great example of this might be the purpose of Kurama and Yase’s creation, something that isn’t fully clarified until the second-last episode. But this one is far more cleverly done. Enough hints are given – right from the opening few episodes – of their purpose, hints that are clearly portrayed through character development in the right spots. But my issue lies, again, in importance. Sure, this might be an interesting development, but it really doesn’t help to drive the story forward. As a viewer, I feel as if I’m sent on a variety of interesting but ultimately insignificant side-quests. Some of the really important details are just too obfuscated for me to follow. Again, drawing from a simple example, I didn’t even realize that Myoue and Inari are the same entity until episode 7, which in a 10-episode series, is kind of a shame. Couldn’t we have gotten some more explicit details on a topic that’s so fundamental to the conclusion of this show any earlier?

Moving on, then, onto my other criticisms of this show, I’ve got to do some commentary on where Toei places their focus. We get a lot of character development on Koto, who is a wonderfully strong character in her own right, but relatively little on her older brother, who I’d argue is the more nuanced of the two. What do I mean by this? It’s temping to see his resolution to continue living (again, last episode) as enough, but I think it’s unsatisfying. Do we ever see him coming to terms with being reborn against his own will into a family that he doesn’t belong to? Are we satisfied with his gift and re-gift of the creation beads, which suggest a grasp that he personally holds on his own life? Or are we content with him living because Koto asked him to? Again, I’m sure there’s way more to his character than this, and perhaps I’m just too dense to see it, but I can’t help but wish that we got more of this developed, in its own anti-chronological order, throughout the show.

In a related topic, I’m also a bit frustrated with the use of some of the show’s characters. There’s obviously the main cast, all of whom directly influence the plot and development of the story, but there’s also a surprising amount of others whom I feel are thrown in just to be forgotten later. Inari’s brother, who seems to appear only for the antagonistic moments? Fushimi and Shouko? Even Danji, whose proximity to Myoue you’d think would offer her some more character development throughout the show? It seems that we get relatively little about all these lesser members of the cast, which really diminished the depth of the fantastical world that they live in.

Finally, I’m going to talk about the art style and its relationship with the story. The story is fanatical – whimsical, mythical, whatever you want to call it. The art is as well. The style foregoes all realism for bright colors, large shapes, and clear motifs. And for the most part, the artstyle fits the story; however, I can’t help but feel that in some places, it doesn’t agree with me. I’ve said this about other shows, but there’s no one place I’d like to pause Kyousou Giga and screengrab it for my desktop background. I can’t quite put my finger on what about it bothers me – possibly that something is literally born out of monk’s idle sketches seems a bit excessive. It seems that most people love the artstyle and I’m in the minority here, but I’m throwing out this opinion in case anyone finds familiarity with it.

I have little else to say and am gratified to have for once limited myself in review length. I wouldn’t rewatch this show for myself, nor can I give it more than a mediocre recommendation for whatever spoiler-nuts may be reading this right now. If you like more than a dash of confusion and some ridiculous fantasy, go for it – if you’re looking for serious plot development through pointed characterization, you may want to look elsewhere.

All the babes in this anime already have boyfriends!
I can see how some people might be into Yase, but she has mommy issues, and is part demon so I would advise against asking her out if you value your life.
That pretty much leaves Shouko as most eligible bachelorette. Shouko’s dedication to her work may make her seem unapproachable, but I’d be willing to bet she’d be willing to go out with just about anyone if they could keep those kids out of her hair for a day. So there’s your in.
Kyousou Giga feels like a lot of care was put into making every aspect of ... it. I wanted to like it more than I did, but had a hard time motivating myself to watch it.
Found myself struggling to understand what I would later come to realize was a thin, relatively easy to understand plot that only seemed complicated because of the storytelling style

Long story short, this show could have been made into a movie with all the fluff cut out.

It really does feel like Kyousou Giga is basically a person saying "well, what if we made this movie into a 12 episode show?" The story is super dragged out, long winded, and incongruous.

We are told the backstory of everyone's past, as if they actually mattered to the show or story at all. It's quite fascinating how little world building there is and how much the story is about diving into the past. Plus, the characters in the show aren't exactly made with depth. You could sum ... up their personalities quite quickly, to be honest. So why would I care about their past? The story progresses at a pace in which they don't ever reach a point of me caring about the character and the story also never reaches a point where characters actually develop or change.

While looking at the past is somewhat important to the plot, a majority of it truly doesn't really matter, and only slows the story down significantly while adding little to no plot. Plus, you would think that figuring out the backstory of every character would make them important or relevant. In reality, this is not the case. Even more of a case to be made of how illogical the ending is.

You would also think that you would understand a character's actions being made or their line of thought once you look into their past and know more about them. False. They act completely tangent to their respective personalities to progress the plot. The fact that so much effort is put into figuring out what is going on only makes the confusing, puzzling, and cheesy ending even more off putting.

Power dynamics also do not exist. People become super strong, super weak, and are also just cast away in a moment's notice for the convenience of story. You're not relevant to the story anymore? Well, let's just forget you ever existed. Or you are powerful but this certain character needs to beat you to progress story? Well, let's make you very weak now. To be fair, I also know that the "power level" of characters aren't exactly crucial or bear a lot of meaning in terms of the story or characterization. It's not DBZ or anything. But still, it kind of irks me, and doesn't make a lot of sense, just like all of the characters.

Many characters do a lot of "mysterious" things, act completely out of character and say weird things. You would assume that gets resolved as the story unravels and the mysteries become clear, but no. Not really. It just gets shelved away in the forgotten corner and the story progresses. What you get is an unsatisfactory ending with many mysteries untouched or lazily resolved with a few words or actions.

Again, this is why I think that this would have been much better off as a movie. More fast paced story and plot would have meant that the weird things that happen or anything that doesn't get answered can be written off as "well, we didn't have enough time, or it's not relevant enough to the story." Clearly, this show doesn't like making a lot of sense, and it's style really reminds me of what a movie would do in that sense. It doesn't even try to make a whole lot of sense. It doesn't explain anything very well, and the whole approach to the story seems to operate that way, That's fine, but it contradicts itself by trying to also be a slow paced show that explains things. It doesn't do a good job, What ends up happening is a slower paced story that makes little to no sense with a little bit more characterization.

Well, let's look at the bright side. What is good about Kyousou Giga? Well, art is quite good. Not amazing, but very well made. Animation is nice, but you really wish there were more well made fight scenes. Instead, there are some nice backgrounds, but nothing breathtaking, really. Setting is also pretty nice. and the sense of mystery in the beginning is also welcome. The show really leads you on in the first few episodes.
That's about it as far as good things are concerned. Characters aren't exactly the focus of the show. It's moreso of the story, which is fine. But both end up being half baked and thus making it an unenjoyable watch.

The experience of watching this anime was simultaneously beautiful and bizarre. Kyousougiga is dripping with gorgeous and imaginative art design, animation, and shot composition, all of which is bursting with color and life. Accompanying this, however, is a story that feels like a bewildering, disjointed mix of mythology and postmodernism that is akin to a raging bull which the viewer must somehow manage to cling to. In this way, it is hard to say much at all about this anime as a unified work, but it must be attempted regardless, even if it broadly defies analysis. Beginning with the story, ... it's almost impossible to choose a place to begin. The basis of this story is rooted in a mythological story structure, with the interactions of gods and spirits and the interplay of morality throughout, and that provides this story with a sense of grandeur and mysticism that becomes a running current through the show. However, as it progresses, it deconstructs the seemingly solid themes the viewer is presented with at the beginning, with gods doubting themselves, people doubting creation itself and the purpose of it all, and even the deconstruction of one's own life as a thing that matters. These two streams of thought come together to make for an interesting contrast, but they also conflict with one another to the point that the story suffers as a coherent continuity. The world operates on these amorphous principles of magic and divinity and dimensional separation, and the viewer is largely left to pick up on how everything works as the show goes on. Undoubtedly it manages to be interesting episode by episode, but to link the larger parts of the story together into something that makes sense takes some work to do. It also doesn't help that there are regular flashbacks, even one flashback within a flashback, and very little of the world's metaphysics is explored. If the story managed to restrain itself just a little bit, it could have been great as a whole, instead of a confused collection of good episodes.

The art, as goes without saying, is incredible, and is this show's strongest point by far. Like was said earlier, everything is absolutely bursting with a life and color that astounds, and not a single thing was left underdone. From the sprawling landscapes to the distinct character designs, pretty much everything is a pleasure to witness. Interestingly enough, I feel like the general 'vibe' of this anime is somewhere between FLCL and Kill la Kill, due to the colorfully kinetic nature of the former and the masterful visual quality of the latter.

The sound is similarly excellent, with a grand, sweeping score and an immense amount of audible detail, right down to the smallest sounds of life like beads clacking together, blood dripping, or the chatter of a large crowd.

The characters are broadly good, and generally serve their purposes within the story, though I don't feel like they really blew me away like the art and sound did. They simply feel good enough, and neither add nor detract from the show as a whole. Koto and Yakushimaru are the strongest characters comparatively, while other major characters like Inari are left lacking. Overall, while Kyousougiga is beautiful in a way that many anime try and fail to be, it still isn't for everyone, because as great as the audiovisual experience is, the overambitious and overwrought story really weighs down one's enjoyment of the show. I was able to make sense of things by the end, but it felt like work to do so, and I feel like that's a feeling most people don't enjoy. Give it a shot if you're ok with that, or if you feel the art and sound are more than worth that price of admission, but be prepared for a meandering journey indeed.

Story - To me it feels like one of those very anime-like stories I don't care for where it's less about the actual telling of events or actual things happening and more about having a scene where someone cries and feeling emotions. I just don't really jive with that kind of media so for me it just didn't do much. I didn't feel very attached to any of the characters, not that they were unlikable or bad but most of them are so one note or bland that I just didn't feel an attachment to them as people. A little more humanity all around would ... have helped elevate it a lot I think.

Art - The one thing this anime does quite well is show off a beautiful and consistent style. It makes me wish everything else was as good but it never felt like it cheapened out or had to cut things for budget. From beginning to end it looked very beautiful and was a lot to behold. the one saving grace keeping this anime from getting a much lower score.

Sound - I simply cannot recall much of the music at all. There was no theme that stood out for the show, or the characters, or anything I can really recall. The opening and credits have already left my mind as well. The sound effects were all serviceable, I noticed one or two stock sounds but not many. The voice actors seemed to be quite competent and good, notable a favorite of mine Chief Priest is voiced by Yao, Kazuki who has too many credits to list. Overall though, nothing all that special and about what you'd expect.

Character - I said so before but basically none of the characters are terrible but neither are any of them very interesting or relatable to me. That said, none of them are consistently annoying enough to bother me so it could be worse. I just wish they all had a little more development so when anything happened to them I cared in the slightest.

Enjoyment - I've seen far worse and it was a short anime so I can't complain a lot. A few episodes in I kind of realized how it would probably end and was waiting for it to be over. It could have been a lot more painful though.

Overall - In my opinion it has so much wasted potential. Had it built the story up more, the characters had more conflict or humanity, the music given some more attention, it could been easily a 9 or even 10. Not necessarily bad but I won't be watching it again any time soon nor will I be recommending it. All I can really say by the end of Kyousou Giga is "I watched it. It was pretty alright."

Looking back at the reviews, I understand why it's score is what it is: on release, and for some time thereafter, it's visuals must have been breathtaking.

However, we've entered an era of animation such that, compared to what we have now, a lot of Kyousou Giga looks unrefined. It's still overall good and I enjoy the sound design and music, but it is no longer good enough to carry a show that is otherwise lacking.

To be honest, the plot is convoluted, the characters are interesting at first but undynamic in the long run, and instead of being on the edge of my seat ... as the mystery of their world unwinds as with Evangelion or Revolutionary Girl Utena, I just lost interest. I found watching the last two episodes to be laborious.

There are still many fantastic moments and some real gems of episodes, but there is a reason why, despite a strong start and a lot of flashiness, Kyousou Giga isn't a classic. Its luster isn't timeless.