Under the Dog

Before starting the review, I will not go in with too much details for each category, such as Story, Art, Sound & Characters. Instead, I will explain what this title did best and worst in a simple manner, knowing that this is an OVA with only 1 episode and a 38 minutes of runtime.

Now, let's begin

The 2016 Under the Dog anime was originally a crowdfunding kickstarter project funded by the fans who are willing to see what potential story the show could bring. The kickstarter campaign ended up being a success with more budget going in than the original goal. With that, Under ... the Dog project was made into reality.

After the release of the OVA, the fans's expectation of it being a good anime seems to be destroyed. Being an anime with a nice visual but a confusing storyline, uninteresting characters, and a short runtime, the fans is dissapointed with what they are served here.

But to me, it's somewhat of a different case. Knowing that this was supposed to be an introduction episode of an upcoming story, i'm somewhat satisfied with what i watched. As i mentioned before, the show delivers a nice, smooth and detailed visuals, bringing a joy to my eyes. The overall sound the OVA delivers is nice and immersive. The OVA also did a nice job on foreshadowing what will come later and made me interested to watch more of it. Sadly, that is the thing that the OVA did best. As an introduction, the show lacks some explanation on what, why, and how these things on the screen happening, adding some confusions with it's overall storytelling. The characters are also felt like they needed an even more depth than what the OVA actually shows, even the main character (Hana) is not even explored thoroughly.

But, even with all these confusion the OVA has made, I somehow enjoyed watching it until the end. The nicely animated battle scenes and uncensored blood & gore, followed by an immersive sfx is just a nice spectacle. I think it's a fine watch for those of you wanting a short and mindless action packed anime that could be finished in one sitting while eating some snacks.

While the animation is lovely, the rest is a rather incomprehensible mess.

We're given no context about the world or the characters living in it besides a quick, and mostly irrelevant, monologue in the beginning. Characters are introduced and abandoned randomly, things are referred to that the audience knows nothing about and are never elaborated on. The tagline of the series is repeated several times without any explanation so we have yet to find out what it means. I went through the entire thing not knowing what the heck the plot was or what the importance of the characters were, and had to look it up ... to make any sense of it. The most important aspects of the plot are referred to only vaguely, and the audience is left wondering what exactly anything means, and not in a good way like you might get from a good mystery or when the writer wants to leave something to the imagination. That doesn't work when you leave the audience in the dark about literally every aspect of the story. So in the end it's a lovely looking spectacle with no real conclusion, not real cohesion, and no real satisfaction.

I rate this 6/10. Why? Because the action is good with all the bullets flying around and the explosions but I didn't understand the story. It seemed like the US was attacking Japan and some special force was sent to secure a boy that the US was trying to capture for some reason. That's what I got from what I could make out but I am still lost about the "monster" that was in the movie. It has no explanation to why that thing exists and why all this is even happening. The story was just all over the place and at the end one ... character says something that I am completely lost by because it's the reason they are doing whatever they are doing in the anime. And yes the reason is stupid.

The sound was good though. It made everything more intense and they also got actual people who can speak English fluently for the American characters. So 10/10 for that.

The only thing that disappoints me is the story and the story plays a huge part in an anime like this. It was enjoyable to see all the action but it would have been much better if it had a good story to go along with it. Nonetheless it is still something you should watch if you are bored and have nothing to do.

under the dog is sorely mistaken for something its not.the creators of under the dog didn't say that the first episode was release,and heres why.

Under the dog ep is officially called Under the dog ep 0,and due to that its easy to say that what was released was more like a really long trailer than the anime it self,like a taste test.UTD was a kick starter and the ep 0 achieved its goals,but the squeal will not be made due to not reaching proper funding in time.

its a real knee jerker this anime and had alot of potential.only real way well see it become something ... good is if another company gets rights of the anime.

also under the dog kinda leaves alot to the imagination but the story is there though its hidden more well than the dark souls story line.
my source-,also the creators to buy their site should be easy to find

-wikipedia

The story for Under the Dog was initially conceived between 1995 and 1996, with a script treatment completed in 1996.[1][3] Under the Dog was initially planned as a 26-episode anime. The project it eventually became was described as an entry point or "Episode 0" to introduce the world and characters.[4] The project's main aim was to continue the style and atmosphere of earlier science fiction anime like Akira and Ghost in the Shell.[1] The story's main theme was young people forced to face their own or their family's deaths. Its central theme was struggling for freedom, represented on multiple levels. Its tagline, "Our enemy is the light of humanity", represents the story element of people intended to be saviors being branded as enemies, a recurring motif in the anime that inspired it.[3][4] Instead of going through the usual funding routes, the creative team decided to use Kickstarter to fund the project. Their stated reason was that the current anime market did not allow for the amount of creative control they desired, as the majority of anime production was dictated by a committee, which would have been unwilling to take on Under the Dog as it did not target the core otaku audience. The team also wanted to reach out to an international audience, making Kickstarter a viable funding option.[3] The game's main staff consisted of director Masahiro Ando, producer Hiroaki Yura, the original writer and later co-writer Jirō Ishii, character designer Yūsuke Kozaki, and composer Kevin Penkin. It was produced by Creative Intelligence Arts, with animation by Kinema Citrus and 3D CGI animation by Orange Co.[1]

When I started to watch this short show, I was sort of enjoying it, it felt very epic and very enjoyable to watch. The entire show is always trailing behind a mystery that is causing you to wonder what is going on. You would think they would explain all this at the end, but they didn't. Because of this we have a visually stunning show full of guns and explosions that makes absolutely no sense and that doesn't sound very good to me. If you don't care if a show makes sense and only want to see some epic explosions and visuals than this is ... the show for you. But if you are like me and for a show to be good it must make sense than you will be very disappointed with this show. I was very disappointed with the ending because I was hoping for some cool conclusion of what was going on, but it never came.

While i score it a 9 it feels just a cut above 8.5, from the start i was filled with cliches of how it would go along with story development, but honesty i was quite surprised by the events that unfolded. Expecting a story of a bad ass heroine and a somewhat dopey protagonist with some hidden power and will advance humanity and have him set on the hero's journey... what followed was a spectacle of twists and turns. The art style was quite wonderful in my opinion, the small details that they made were pleasing to my eyes and the more violent scenes were ... done quite well. The main Heroine that appeared during most of the episode, was done in a way that even with the amount of time she appeared i felt sorry for her. overall not having heard about it before it's released i enjoyed watching it.

Another One-episode-is-not-enough-anime :)

I have not looked into the background for this anime, from what I have heard it is a somewhat crowdfunded anime and it seems not that it did not live up to the satisfaction, but for what reasons why I do not know :)

Only watch this is you want to crave for more because the setting of the plotline does not stop with only this episode nor did it wrap it all up in a satisfying ending.
Unlike a one episode anime called "Kuro no Sumika: Chronus" which in my opinion had everything, plot, progress, interesting characters and were wrapped up quite satisfyingly :)

but ... was under the dog a mess? No, for me it was like an pilot episode, a longer trailer which shows the potential of the show and for that the show did do good :)
(but I must say it seemed like that maybe the writers/director was quite inspired by gunslinger girls and maybe a bit of neon genesis evangelion? not totally sure about the last one because they did not really show nor told much about the "pandoras")

So yeah watch this if you liked being tortured by anime with potential but only has one episode or you wanna increase your completed anime number :)

Rate of 5
Seen via english subtitles

Plot: was too mass produced that it completely ruined itself. If you were to name one thing common in action it is guns. Here was no exception. Guns on the left and right. Upwards and downwards gunfire. Basically, the only feature i understood was there were guns.

I was not happy with this episode at all. Episode 1 or in this case episode 0 is meant to allure the viewer to watching the show. Mission accomplished. Yet, you also need to explain a good case what it happening. Mission:Incomplete. I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt ... on that from when the 'reveal' was to happen but given the play-out really? REALLY?! To make matters worse the writers flat out insult the viewers with their "i just told you" message. You can hint all you wish but unless all the black coating from the paper is removed there is no way i can study. in other words ever see a classified file? _____('_' are blacked out font.) did _______ but led to _____. We the ______ tried to _____ ______ _____. You get the idea.

I suppose maybe that was meant to be the case leaving off with questions so you can ask the people you watched with their thoughts but really? I find it is easier to make a judgement when all facts are in not on hearsay. Much like a lawyer on evidence vs testimony.

do not listen to the constant complaining in the review section. this is a 30 minute pilot, that gives us a glimpse, of what a full series can be. a pilot is meant to introduce characters, and and give a small portion of the story.

it seems like many people in the review section, were expecting to be told everything in a 30 minute episode. if you pay attention well, you can piece details together.

i hope to see more of this, but this is the problem with kick starter projects. with luck, they might be picked up by an anime studio, but ... i doubt it.

Being the result of a Kickstarter project, and a controversial one at that, the reviews are mixed. Some praise it to the skies, while others burn it to the ground. It all comes down to one thing: expectations. Some give extra credit for producing something like this on a KS budget, or as KS Backers themselves felt they got a good return on their investment, while others had nothing to do with the KS campaign, or other Backers might feel they were promised more. To understand a bit about how people have come to judge this OVA, some knowledge of its history is perhaps required.

As ... previously mentioned, this OVA was born from a KS campaign that, at $878,028, achieved almost one and a half times its goal in pledges. This result was probably mostly due to the allready finished trailer used to promote the project. The trailer was well paced, got the viewer intrigued, but most of all showed background art that could rival Kotonoha no Niwa, Makoto Shinkai's movie that from a visual perspective is by many still considered the holy grail of animation. However, as time passed, the KS campaign fell silent, untill an announcement was made that the project was being rebooted by another studio. To the outside world, nothing was revealed of what actually happened. A little over a year later the OVA was released.

STORY and CHARACTERS: 6/10

So, what have we got? The OVA seems to be very much a prologue to the actual story. In fact, it does not even contain many of the scenes from the original trailer. While some have pointed out that the story and characters are poor, the fact that the story is can be forgiven based on the premise that it is a prologue, while the characters being poor seems to have been to make a point in itself, something which can not really be elaborated upon without spoiling the OVA. I personally also quite liked the point made by the characters being poor. Overall there just is not much to go by (yet), when rating the story and characters. They are bland, yet at the same time provide an adequate setup for future installments.

SOUND: 9/10

Sounds in the OVA are solid, with gun reports being portrayed a bit more realistically than is common in anime, normal English, rather than Engrish is spoken, even with the Japanese original audio, and the soundtrack is simply amazing. Sound is definitely the OVA's forte.

ART: 7/10

Finally comes the art, which is where things get a bit more difficult. Animation is fluid and the backgrounds are still very much above average, but at the same time it looks like corners were cut. Especially grunt characters just look off, and it looks like there was not even an attempt made at proper shading. This stands out all the more because it contrasts so strongly with the backgrounds, and even generally with the main characters that seem to have been drawn with much more attention to detail. I have rated the art with a 7/10, because it is still quite good, but bear with me as I will explain later why this is actually the OVA's weakest grade.

ENJOYMENT and OVERALL: 7/10

Enjoyment, not taking into consideration any possible feelings of dissapointment with the art, comes in at 7/10, which combined with the other grades makes for an overall appreciation of 7/10 as well.

With an overall rating of 7/10 it is not the worst anime has to offer, but it is also quite far from being a must watch, even for fans of the genre. I myself was not a Backer of the KS campaign, but I did follow the project closely from around the time it was succesfully Backed. While I do understand the notion that it is "only" the product of a KS project, I am not so inclined to lend it extra credit for that. After all, considering the amount of money they picked up, the amount of money with which they went over their goal, and at what stage they allready seemed to be, I think a certain level of expectations was justified, and that level would be no lower than that of any non KS product. At the end the fact remains that the OVA did not come anywhere near the quality of the original trailer, especially in the arts department. What happened?

Like I mentioned ealier, I feel like the loss in art quality was the result of cutting corners, and while I said that the story and characters were perfectly acceptable for a prologue, I strongly suspect the choice of making it a prologue also being the result of cutting one huge corner. It just seems like someone seriously underestimated what it'd take to produce a full episode worth of content, and tried to cut those corners just to release something. $878,028 Might not be a whole lot for the production of an anime anno 2016, but then if that was what held them back, that also was a part of underestimating what it takes. In fact, I would not be suprised if the studio switch and reboot were the result of the first team failing to deliver because of that very reason. The second team would have then picked up with a more realistic mindset, while having to deal with the impossible expectations set by the first. Whether this was a sincere attempt or just damage control - after all, those Backers were still expecting something to be released - remains to be seen. If sequels, containing the actual story (and the missing scenes from the trailer), are made, they might convince me of the first. If not,..

Ok, to be fair, I'll tell you the good things I found in Under The Dog: Nice backgrounds...and that's all.

Story and characters: 1/10

The story makes no sense at all since we never get an explanation of anything, seriously, if you didn't read the sinopsis on any website, you wouldn't even know in what year this takes places. Also, this OVA has teenage girls that can kill trained soldiers with badass acrobatics and dodge heavy artillery shots; erotic fanservice, and the power of gaining strength by screaming with anger, making it imposible for both the spectator and the OVA to take itself seriously, wich is what ... the story tries to do, making it pretentious. Now let's talk about the characters: Hana, the female MC, is only there to say "I want to protect muh family" and protecting Nanase, the male MC, and talking about him, he's a damn retard; he follows a girl that he doesn't even know for more tan ten minutes even after seeing her killing soldiers that should be the good guys on his eyes, tells her about his family problems, and when she tells him to escape from the army, he runs, and then TURNS BACK without ANY WEAPON, to try to help her. The other 3 girls barely appears on the OVA, and are just as boring and bland as the protagonist duo, they don't even deserve to having their names being remembered.

Technical work: 3/10

Aside from the backgrounds I mentioned before, the technical values are a punch in the face to anyone who saw the tráiler; the animation lacks of any detail or fluenty, making the action scenes boring and goofy, the shadows are inexistent or if they are, they are hard to be noted.
The designs are totally generic, and the physics are shit. The music is totally forgettable and you could sometimes forget that there's even any soundtrack.

Conclution:

Under The Dog is a horrible OVA, with a disapointing technical work and a terrible script. Too rushed to be a complex drama, too incrompensible to be funny brainless action; just don't watch it.

From the synopsis of Under the Dog, I almost debated taking it off my list.

It was a triple threat for me. High school meets action with banal characters - just awful. Despite this, it was only around a half an hour long, so I doubled down and ran through it expecting it to be as terrible as I had predicted. Fortunately, I was pretty shocked. The action was well animated, the characters weren't entirely as cardboard as I thought, and the story (even though ambiguous) actually had me pining for more.

Most of the mistakes that Under the Dog made were positively shadowed by good ... performance, well-adjusted sound design, and an attractive plot. The level of detail put into some of the scenes made me smile, which is usually something I don't normally experience when I watch anime. I was impressed by how much authenticity the scenes had, as well. This wasn't flash-bang Naruto-sequence fighting; it was choreographed, meticulous, and damn entertaining.

Some people might not agree, but I thought for the story that this anime tried to portray, it did a good job. While I think it fell victim to many mistakes that other shows do, it surely makes up for it in any other aspect. If you are debating, I would honestly just give it a shot. It's only a half hour of your time and you might be pleasantly surprised - I know I was.

amidst a lot of people who say this OVA was meh, here is my take on it..
it wasn't perfect sure, not even excellent or great, but it was good for what it is.
[story] story is underdeveloped yes, but what do you expect from a one episode OVA anyway? this was made in hopes for creating a full fledged anime series, one that would potentially delve into and explain all the details. in its short run time, it did what a single teaser-like episode should have done.. that is, give only enough of the story to keep viewers interested as well as showcase the amazing visuals ... and animation.
[art/sound] i don't know about you, but beautiful art and animation, great soundtrack, and an interesting story is something very exciting for me in this time of lazy CG, downright ugly art/animation and incredulously overdone & repetitive story lines.
[character] hm well, of course not much "development" could be expected from any of the characters with the measly run time but i thought they were interesting and real enough (i mean, most people thrust in that situation would probably act the same way). what i want to say is that the characters were believable and worked well with the "taste of the story" we were given.
[enjoyment] exciting enough story, great art, fluid animation, beautiful sound = good times
overall, it was a (little less than) 30 minutes well spent. here's to hoping more from under the dog!

Kinema Citrus put a lot of effort into leaving the viewer confused as possible pertaining to the plot of the story, there are many themes to the story that are thrown around but never developed, I can understand why they would do this considering that the studio is looking to create a 2nd episode and leaves us on so many cliffhangers out of the hope that it will motivate people to fund the 2nd installment and potentially an OVA movie. That being said Kinema definitely went over the top in trying to grab the viewer's interest.

*Warning: spoilers (although under the dog is so contrived that ... it's hard to really spoil anthing)*

story 1/10
First let's address the elephant in the room: the story gives us no firm grasp on the plot, they only vaguely explain who the flowers are and give us no explanation into how pandoras are created, if you peek at anthea'ss monitor it would imply that the flowers have some type of psychic ability that the pandoras emulate through a twisted mutation. There also seems to be an implication that they are searching for someone who has a particular mutation of this psychic strain and may or may not be the key to freeing humanity from a scientific breakthrough gone horribly wrong however most of what I've stated just now is based purely off conjecture considering that there's never any concrete explanation into anything going on in this episode. The pacing of under the dog left me feeling disconnected from the characters and anything they do although at least the action scenes can be seen as a prelude to what we may expect from the 2nd installment (should it get enough funding)

Art 8/10
One thing under the dog did well was the art and animation. The artwork felt new and didn't lose it's appeal throughout the episode and was consistent enough to at least keep my attention by being aesthetically pleasing.

Characters 3/10
A surefire way to lose peoples interest in an anime is to rush character introductions and give no time to actually care about them before killing them off. It felt like an insult to my intelligence when they wasted the majority of the episode on characters that we could have watched only the last 5 minutes and felt more emotion for than if we were to watch the entire episode. They waste time on characters that will end up being meaningless simply to force the theme of dread and lack of hope for humanity, instead of giving us reasons to care about these people we're forced to not care because of how they are handled

Overall i think that under the dog has potential and I really hope they make an episode 2 in order to elaborate more on the story's plot because otherwise this one-shot was a waste of time and crowdfunding.

Under the Dog is one of those OVA's where it feels like an episode in a series rather than one singular thing. As a result there isn't that much going on.

The story is very vague, within the 28 minute time frame it didn't manage to give you an understanding of everything. There's just assassins called 'Flowers' and there are monsters known as Pandora's and they're all having a duke out with the US military over a boy...or something.

That being said, the action scenes were very enjoyable to watch and the visuals were quite nice.

If Under the Dog had a longer run time, or a movie ... or more episodes it would have been a lot better than it was. It has potential to create a interesting world if they ever make more, but hypotheticals doesn't really make it any better.

Overall it was an enjoyable OVA even if none of it made any sense.

It's fine. For something trying to tell a story in under 30 minutes, it does okay. As a concept, Under the Dog isn't bad at all, it's actually rather intriguing.

Story: There isn't much of a story, but for an action short it manages to have a few implications that are at least interesting despite, or even because of not being explained.

The next paragraph you could consider spoilers, though there isn't much of a story to spoil and it's just speculation.

From the OVA, we can assume that the idea is that there are these monsters throughout Japan and maybe the world ... that are extremely powerful and deadly. The only way to kill these monsters is with assassins called Flowers whom we can infer have a more limited set of powers than the monsters, but are still the only things that can stand a chance. In order to get rid of the monsters (I assume), they need a person who has the power of the monsters within them, but which has not manifested itself. And the story here just follows an instance of trying to get one of these people.

Like I said, it's fine. It's a sort of insta-plot that you've seen a thousand times, but if the show is tagged as Action, chances are you aren't looking for a deep intricate plot that requires lots of analysis. All it is is a way to make things go boom and have cute girls with guns, and if that's what you're here for, it gets the job done fine.

Art: Also fine. Now I can understand why some people might be upset because in an action show with the most basic plot of all time and the most unexplored characters as well has pretty middle of the road animation, but once again, it does it's job. The show has explosions, it has guns, it has some little parkour bits, it has scenes of people running through a hail of bullets, it has big monsters. It's not supremely smoothly animated, which I feel like there could have been more effort put into that considering that it is only a half hour long and there isn't much else to come for, but it's fine. To the average viewer, like myself, it works. It didn't blow my ind, it didn't have anything that I wanted to watch over and over because of how cool it looked, but it''s passable. Just because something isn't exceptional, doesn't mean that it isn't solid.

Sound: I believe in the idea that sound is done well when you don't notice it and done expertly when you have to take note of how well it fits. Here, the sound is done well. There was no music that took me out of the show for any reason, there were no sound effects that were bad or out of place, and while I can't say a ton about Japanese voice acting, it was fine in my opinion. There were a couple slips in the English voice acting, but not to the point where it took me out of it, just maybe 2 spots where I chuckled a little at the line read. While I can say that it caught me off guard a little bit when I first heard English acting in the Japanese dub, it certainly isn't a bad thing, just an unexpected one.

Character: Now normally a show with no character development at all would bother me, considering that almost all I care about in any story is the characters. Here though, it's fine. It's only 30 minutes long and the emphasis is on the action, so I can't blame them for wanting to just present cardboard cutouts and have them fight. If this show were 12, or even 6 episodes at 20 minutes a piece, I would be pissed that it had so little character development even though it's not as much of a priority because of the amount of time they had, but here? It's fine.

So overall, it's a waste of time. But it's not a bad waste of time. Currently it has very little substance, but with more time it could turn out to be something good with the plot seeds this OVA planted as well as the lack of explanation of the characters, there is room to work with. It's not great, but it's not bad, and it's only 30 minutes long, so why not give it a watch?

Let me get it out there that I did not donate any money to the creation and or development of this independently animated OVA. That being said, I still followed the progress of the OVA's creation since the time of its announcing.

When taking the financial situation of the studio responsible for this OVA into account, it is somewhat understandable that, with their budget, the creators would not be able to do nearly as much as they would've wanted to with their allotted resources. This being the case, when it came to the OVA's selling point, being the animation and action choreography, many viewers will ... be happy to know that the fluidity and caliber of animation presented was nothing short of top notch... at least for the action scenes. As previously stated, what with the budget the studio had to work with, the creators invested the majority of their funds into the action sequences of the OVA, thus leaving the rest of the episode's animation rather bland, choppy, and unappealing. To some this is a mute point however it is important to note the extremely abrupt shifts in animation quality as it could be somewhat jarring.

In terms of the pacing of the OVA, objectively I can only say that the failed attempt at a story line was nothing short of a disaster. It is as if the developers didn't know exactly what to prioritize when creating the OVA and thus, decided to shoehorn absolutely everything in instead. Being a one episode OVA the assumption is that the basis of a simple story should be presented in hopes of being elaborated upon in potential future installments. This was unfortunately not the case. With a myriad of nameless and pointless characters, confusing and unexplained plot progressions, and a premise that, unless you read up on via the "Under the Dog" website, is largely unexplained, the final concoction is one that I'm sure will leave many eager viewers disappointed after two years of waiting.

In terms of sound production I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the firearms presented in the OVA seemed to hold substantial weight to them and sounded, at least to a civilian ear, authentic. The original musical score by Kevin Penkin in the OVA facilitated the action/thriller dynamic well but did little more than that. There was no single track that particularly caught my ear whilst watching the episode though that might be the cause of subjective bias.

In conclusion, you lose nothing by watching Under the Dog, but in my opinion you also gain nothing. It is a short watch if you have the time to spare and would like to see some well animated fight choreography but other than that, it is best to be avoided.

Gore, guns, explosions, and one naked boob.

Story [4] - Not much can be said in an action focused OVA like Under The Dog. Instead of giving us a story we are given many questions like "Who is the enemy?" "How did all of this happen?" "Who/what are these characters?". The story feels like it can truly go places, but where that place is no one knows since all we are left with is questions.

Art [10] - With as large of a budget Under The Dog got it sure as hell should look good. There are no lush green forests or glistening oceans to look at, ... expect only bullet holes and blood smeared walls of lavish high school. The background characters are rather questionable looking at times but the design of the background, gore, enemies, and the fluid motion of limbs flying around makes you forget about anything that looks off.

Sound [9] - Guns, explosions, and a suspenseful score. The only off putting thing are the American soldiers voices and some of the unnecessary cheesy dialogue they shout out. The final few lines of the main character are well delivered and worth noting.

Character [4] - There's only one real interesting character but due to the lack of story in this we know little to nothing of the character. The main character isn't anything special, same goes for the enemies. Of course all of this could be fixed if there were a story to begin with.

Enjoyment [5] - I like action, but I also like a good story that's fleshed out so luckily they delivered well on the action part or else I would have walked away a long time ago. The score added some extra enjoyment and suspense to the action scenes along with one emotional scene but everything in between could be ignored until gunshots or explosions were heard.

Overall [5] - If you're a fan of guns, explosions, and just action in general this will deliver on it. If you love a good story or trying to pick apart the lore and find out the reason why a character did what they did, ignore this as there are no real answers to any of the questions you may have. I could be wrong as I didn't follow the Kickstarter for Under The Dog very much, there could have been snippets of character/world/organization info posted up and if so it's no real excuse to leave any of that behind in the final product.

'Under the Dog' was actually rather......down the middle for a crowd-funded 'demonstration' video. Not outrageously terrible, but neither was it super impressive. With a very vague plot and lack of characterization came stellar art and sound work.

[Story - 4]

The plot was told in an incomplete manner (Girls With Guns are sent to assassinate monsters hiding as humans after a disaster), but I was able to follow it in the later half thanks to some exposition. I would have preferred it if they put that in the beginning, but I guess beggers can't be choosers. There are many questions left unanswered, but I'm guessing that's to ... provide interest for any potential studios to pick it up (apparently this was originally planned as a 2-cour series, hence the subtitle 'Episode 0'). I kind of hope that does happen, as even though this was mainly action-focused, I /can/ see some potential for this being expanded upon properly

[Art - 8]

The art isn't particularly unique (it looks really same-y in comparison to other modern sci-fi/action animes like this), but it does look good. I can tell they spent their money wisely here, as multiple aspects come together well (colour palette, flow of movement/action, character design). I hope whoever did the work here finds more work!

[Sound - 7]

Same thing for the art here - the OST isn't outright amazing, but it suits the OVA well and does its job, while other aspects (voice acting, SFX) are done well. (Okay, the english voice-acting was decent but they could have done better).

[Character - 3]

The characterization was really lackluster save for some of the Flowers (Girls With Guns); you can clearly see the struggle they have with doing this in order to protect their loved ones, along with the desperation they feel during combat.

Outside of that? Not much worth saying. Even the Male Protagonist is really lackluster, and I have no idea why I was supposed to care about him.

[Enjoyment/Overall - 5/6]

Ultimately, I wasn't expecting much going in, and it only exceeded the expectations of art and sound. I can see how both types of reviewers for this piece are valid now, and I say it's worth checking out their reviews. I don't honestly know if I would recommend this, but feel free to - just go into this like you would with a blockbuster action flick.

Not much to report on what we see on the show.

Some comment "This is a bad story, it didn't entertain me enough in those 38m", but look ...What is an original work is that in its planning was to tell a drama surrounded by much war and blood, where it was seen or made a little clear why this case is occurring. Due to this, both in the animation, as in his commitment to develop a little history and its characters that would finally stand out more in the show, so as not to be white at all.
All those explosions and gunshots were ... great, but they were enough to be bothering.
You see!!!!!
In the middle of the house frame / explosions / shot / blood, we see animation interlaced and well placed in size and visibly suited in the middle of the sequence.
Finally, it is a work that leaves something to be desired, as the initial approach is quiet, and in sequence it is already good for the rapid development and not very viable, I say that if there were a much more explanatory series in its narrative, and adequate and well-suited characters. worked in the business, Under the Dog would be a good anime on his action list, sc-fi, Thriller.
I don't know what rating to give for this OAV, a 5 should be one more than not suitable.